Fifty-two

I just turned 52 years old. It’s a strange feeling — I know, I know, I probably say this every year. 52 certainly does not look like what I thought it would. There’s an aura of the bizarre about it from my perspective.

Celebrities make it look easy. Botox this, lift that. I do what I can. I still wear my contacts, but I need reading glasses now. I color my hair which each year becomes increasingly gray (it’s pretty damn gray now!). The crinkles under my eyes are more pronounced. Lines on my forehead are now visible all the time. My jowls deepen and sag a bit each year — suspended only by my thick layer of baby face fat — which, in turn, is preventing me from totally looking my age. And while I look in the mirror and still see ME, seeing a recent high school photo of myself reminded me that I’m slowly aging away from being recognizable as my former self.

Being old is weird.

Understand that from the time I was a kid, I was the youngest everywhere. I was in the gifted program so, promoted ahead of my peers, I was always around older kids. At only 19, I was hired by a major government agency company, Initech, where I worked for 23 years — by and large, being the youngest person in the room. It wasn’t until the end of my tenure there that we started bringing on interns who were a decade-and-a-half younger than me.

And as the youngest person in the room, I always had to prove myself. I excelled at appealing to the boomers — that was how I got so far ahead so quickly. I was used to fighting to excel and get ahead of people with miles more experience than me.

Now, I am the senior member of most social groups. No longer fighting to prove that my youth and inexperience aren’t a crippling factor, suddenly I’m fighting to prove that I’m not too over-the-hill to do the job of someone a couple decades younger. It seemed to happen overnight, even though I logically know it did not.

I recently ran across a resume that I used during my 20s when I was trying to get a job outside of Initech. I laugh now because I hated it so much, I was always trying to get a job outside of Initech, but never did until I just outright quit. Anyway, at the top of my resume, it says, along side my photo, “Not just another babe in the woods” followed by, “I can help you see the forest for the trees.” Nevermind the now outdated term of “babe” but the message was — ignore the fact that I’m way to young to be doing this job, but believe in my proven track record of successes!

I can’t use that resume anymore on any level.

With COVID-19 hogtying all of my efforts to get a job as a graduate nurse, I’m forced to reconsider even my nursing resume that had been developed while in nursing school. So I’ve been thinking a lot about my job history as well as my personal history and considering what it means to be a former prodigy in the body of a 52-year-old fat chick.

There’s been a lot of history. A lot of water under this bridge. It’s also weird to know that so few people know that. When I was first hired by Initech, so many of those I worked with were near retirement and — not to be too morbid about it — most of them are dead now. When I fill out a job application and they want the names of my supervisors — I mean, seriously, from 30 years ago! — what do I say? “Uh, John is dead, but I guess you can call his modern replacement, Britney, and see if she can look it up.” Come on.

Additionally, these days, there’s Twitter and Facebook to track your every move and record your history. But twenty years ago, that wasn’t around. There’s no recordings of me singing at the top of my game. No news report footage (and frankly, I never got that famous anyway). No video proof on Youtube. And scandals? Hah. I was pre-twitter, babe. I mean, there aren’t naked pictures of me diving into the lake from when I was 25 — thank God — or some stupid sex video while making love under the stars. Okay, yes, I suppose someone might have something on Beta or VHS if they were really interested in doing so, but it would have been a much bigger project back then than now when all’s required is pulling your cell phone out of your pocket. Yet, still, I’m expected to answer for things like an unpaid credit card bill from 1989. Yes, believe it or not, it’s still out there poking its ugly head up and out of the past now and again.

Health-wise, 52 isn’t really all that bad. Aside from being obese and having high blood pressure and, like, no stamina for going up and down stairs, my heart’s okay, my kidneys are fine, I have no diabetes or high cholesterol. If I could just convince myself to go on a diet and lose weight, I’m sure I’d feel much, much better. It’s mostly little things. I’m tired a lot more than I used to be — again, probably due to being 100 pounds overweight, but then again, maybe not. It takes a second when I stand up to get going. I usually have to stretch first. I enjoy the idea of a nap a lot more than actually having one. And a lot of little things like hot flashes and battling occasional acne due to perimenopause — those things are the stuff I fight most often healthwise.

The age of 52, as hinted at previously, is a little precarious socially. I have settled into my friends and, by-and-large, I’m happy with that. I don’t feel the overarching need to have a huge circle of friends. I have little tolerance for idiots anymore — I’ve heard that comes with maturity, so I can reassure you that it does happen. I don’t fight with people much anymore because time and experience has proven to me (ad nauseum) that it doesn’t work and the only one who suffers is me. I do long for love, which is a tough pill to swallow. And as a heavy person, this makes it nearly impossible to find, let alone being over-50. But I have discovered that most days, I’m doing just fine by myself. It’s not ideal, but it could be worse. And honestly, every time I get horrible gas from eating something that doesn’t agree with me, I thank heaven that I can be home alone to flatulate in peace without embarrassment. I can also have the bathroom door open all the time which is nice. And I never have to fight over the remote.

I don’t learn fast anymore which is REALLY frustrating. I feel like I have Alzheimer’s sometimes due to the number of times I forget something. I never used to be like that. Everyone tells me that’s normal, but it sucks ass.

Dealing with the modern world is sometimes frustrating, but it’s not that bad. I’ve been around the cutting edge of technology for most of my life so I do just fine — except for the last five years or so. A lot of my hindrance is due to being poor these last several years — I simply haven’t been able to afford the new bits of technology that become available. So when I do get something, the learning curve is a little steeper than normal. I remember the first time I tried to silence my iPhone (I’d used Android up til then). I had no idea where the shut-off button was and found myself having to rely on a 20-year-old to show me how. That was awkward to say the least. I’m sure she was thinking some damn boomer needed help because she isn’t tech savvy — oh! if she only knew!

That, I think, is one of the toughest things about being 52 for me — because I’m still single, there’s nobody with that history (or interest) in my life. Who really remembers the good stuff? When I was being young and crazy and working for Initech at a mere 19 years old? Or when I was at the height of my dreams of being a great opera singer? Or an actor? Or when I was a famous artist and had people sending me fan mail? Only a couple — and they’re family, and trust me, they don’t care.

They don’t see me as a person with an interesting and varied history. They see an annoying baby sister who couldn’t decide what she wanted.

To them, right now, I’m merely on my newest “adventure” which (SURPRISE!) isn’t going anywhere. Sure, the lack of jobs is due to a global pandemic far beyond my control, but in their minds, it’s just another excuse for me to somehow manage to fuck up a good thing.

They might be right, but I like to think of the life I’ve led as being this enormous tapestry of entertaining experiences occasionally marred by tragedy or stupidity. It’s all in the presentation.

After all, if I told you I had worked with some of the best in the business as an artist then met, and got to work with these famous, amazingly talented people — that’s one thing. But if I told you all those famous people were actually quite ordinary and human, many were addicts and alcoholics with self-esteem issues, that takes a bit of the fun out of it. Then when I tell you that nothing long-term ever came of any of it, you’d dismiss the whole thing as just another one of my silly side-trips. That’s how my family sees it.

But how long are any of these little sojourns supposed to be anyway? People come in and out of your life all the time. But as many people have spouses and families, it isn’t noticed as much. You return to your “normal life” at the core of things when these little side-trips end. Me? My “normal life” is something like a career nomad. There is no core.

It’s hard for my family to reconcile that. But for me, it’s just the way things are.

Yet, I have been wanting to put down roots and be done with flitting from job to job. I was honestly hoping that at 52, I could settle into a nice routine as a nurse and be done with the craziness at last. But it’s not looking good in that regard. Another major shift may be on the horizon because if nursing can’t be a career for me, I don’t know what will.

Here’s to 52 years on Planet Earth. It’s been strange — and certainly not at all what I expected.