Getting Older and Cheetos and Bad Bunny

Apr 19
2 min read

I'm 58. Fifty! Eight! My birthday was back in November, so don't go wishing me happy birthday. But my husband and I just spent three weeks in Italy celebrating his 60^th and that got me to thinking. Thinking about getting older. It's a weird, weird thing. Kinda like Cheetos. They taste so good, with their bright orange cheese-a-liscious powder, crunchy puffs of...well, I'm not exactly sure what those crunchy puffs are. A pure, American junk food complete with residual orange fingertips.

Glorious Side A.

Side A of getting older is also glorious because you're GETTING OLDER. You know the alternative - not so glorious. Being alive is a good thing. You get to be present with the ones you love and hug them and kiss them and hear their voice and see them. All really good things. Being alive means, you get to eat warm brownies and play with your golden retriever in the sunshine and crank Bad Bunny in your car and feel sand beneath your feet and laugh till tears come from your eyes and write books. Again, all really, really good things. All as yummy as the cheesy goodness of a freshly opened bag of Cheetos.

Ah, but if we have Side A, we must have Side B.

Side B sucks.

Back to the Cheetos. Side B of Cheetos is fairly simple. They are filled with ingredients I can't pronounce which make them toxic and oh so bad for the human body. And speaking of human bodies, that is my Side B of getting older. I long for my 21-year-old physique. That body that could eat crap like Cheetos & ice cream & cheeseburgers and still be a size 6. Another Side B of getting older is when 21-year-olds look at me as 'old'. It is such a strange experience because I remember being 21 and thinking 50-year-olds were, like, so old. And now I am the 50+year-old, and I want to politely explain, "I'm really not that old. You'll see. I swear." But I don't want to scare the nice 21-year-olds.

But back to Side A. The being alive side. The side I’d like to settle down in, roll around a bit. Spend some leisurely time in. Have a hot green tea. Sit for a while.

Screw Side B.

Side A is the reminder to anchor myself in the present and focus on what I do have, which is people I love who love me back, my health (yes, I know how old that sounds, but it’s the freaking truth), my mind, my determination, my creativity, and my dog. My dog is at a level of perfection that, quite honestly, is unparalleled. She is a 2-year-old golden retriever who has brought so much joy to my life it’s almost obscene. But love like that can’t be obscene. It’s too perfect.