You're Only as Young as...
Jun. 7th, 2004 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseHello, how was y'all's weekend?
I'm finding myself tired a lot lately; like, I think I'm gonna sit down again kind of tired. Like walk three-quarters of the way to work and then jump on a streetcar to save the last ten minutes walking tired. If it's a bug, it doesn't have any other symptoms. It might just be my body demanding an end to stresses, but I'm not sure how I can oblige and not sure my body isn't just a whiner who better shape up or head home!
It was a good weekend. Yesterday included a bunch of spontaneous socializing that lifted me out of my funk a bit. The theme of the day seemed to be age.
After lunch with Snake, Toutou,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redrunner and snowmit, we stood around discussing mortgages and pension funds and I found myself saying, "my, aren't we grown up," only to note, with chagrin, that I am in fact 41.
Later on, I was meeting up with a friend who has moved down to Atlanta and was visiting home for a few days. We had an interesting discussion about BDSM with its "boys" and "sirs" and "dads" and noted how those concepts float free of age and yet are rooted in stages of life.
I find myself wondering about age and maturity and readiness and markers of success lately. How grown up am I really? How should I be different? How should I be different by this time in my life? These are, actually, preposterous questions and yet we all ask them. Lives are lived and we decide moment by moment where our next foot will fall. Even with a master plan, set for us by our own wills or by a social structure around us, we still progress by lurches and pratfalls towards wherever. Well, towards the grave, but hopefully on a local train with interesting stops rather than on the sleek express coach.
I bristled at a ridiculous piece of received wisdom spouted by my Atlanta friend about gay men maturing late. This strikes me as propoganda to which gays give spurious credence by the very insecurities that we collected as outsider youth. But it's interesting how triggered I was by the statement. Part of me can't help but feel that without producing kids and without more ardent devotion to career, I have no clear-cut identity in my own society. The fact that I am just one small unit in a huge machine and I try to make at least my immediate world a better place is an intellectual comfort, but not always an emotional one.
I feel split in two: part of me so clearly sees my maturity, especially in the ways that I lend my strength to others, both actively and by example. And then I see myself as the lost boy who just wants to kick and scream, from dawn till dusk: IT'S NOT FAIR!
I'm finding myself tired a lot lately; like, I think I'm gonna sit down again kind of tired. Like walk three-quarters of the way to work and then jump on a streetcar to save the last ten minutes walking tired. If it's a bug, it doesn't have any other symptoms. It might just be my body demanding an end to stresses, but I'm not sure how I can oblige and not sure my body isn't just a whiner who better shape up or head home!
It was a good weekend. Yesterday included a bunch of spontaneous socializing that lifted me out of my funk a bit. The theme of the day seemed to be age.
After lunch with Snake, Toutou,
redrunner and snowmit, we stood around discussing mortgages and pension funds and I found myself saying, "my, aren't we grown up," only to note, with chagrin, that I am in fact 41.Later on, I was meeting up with a friend who has moved down to Atlanta and was visiting home for a few days. We had an interesting discussion about BDSM with its "boys" and "sirs" and "dads" and noted how those concepts float free of age and yet are rooted in stages of life.
I find myself wondering about age and maturity and readiness and markers of success lately. How grown up am I really? How should I be different? How should I be different by this time in my life? These are, actually, preposterous questions and yet we all ask them. Lives are lived and we decide moment by moment where our next foot will fall. Even with a master plan, set for us by our own wills or by a social structure around us, we still progress by lurches and pratfalls towards wherever. Well, towards the grave, but hopefully on a local train with interesting stops rather than on the sleek express coach.
I bristled at a ridiculous piece of received wisdom spouted by my Atlanta friend about gay men maturing late. This strikes me as propoganda to which gays give spurious credence by the very insecurities that we collected as outsider youth. But it's interesting how triggered I was by the statement. Part of me can't help but feel that without producing kids and without more ardent devotion to career, I have no clear-cut identity in my own society. The fact that I am just one small unit in a huge machine and I try to make at least my immediate world a better place is an intellectual comfort, but not always an emotional one.
I feel split in two: part of me so clearly sees my maturity, especially in the ways that I lend my strength to others, both actively and by example. And then I see myself as the lost boy who just wants to kick and scream, from dawn till dusk: IT'S NOT FAIR!
