right-brained for life

The next person, glowing with the youth and promise of being in their twenties, who says to me, with a long face, "Ugh, I'm so OLD," will get an unwrapped present in return: the retort of "Yeah, I guess so." I'M LOOKING AT YOU, TOO, FRIENDS-IN-REAL-LIFE.

How are you old??? SHUSH. Let me explain you a thing.

First off, isn't it sad that it doesn't matter with how much distaste we regard the upcoming generation (currently in their teens and pre-teens), because compared to them, we are the stuffy, boring grown-ups that we never wanted to become? Fuck 'em. Why do we care what they think? They idolize people like Justin Beiber (who, apparently, is so self-absorbed, that he can get away with desecrating the memory of a Holocaust-era icon like Anne Frank--Anne Frank) and Taylor Swift, who has the emotional maturity of a girl ten years her junior. They also didn't know that the Titanic was an actual ship, so...c'mon.

Secondly, how much older are you planning on living? I'm planning on being one of those old ladies who keeps growing her hair long and who has a ton of crow's feet and laugh lines entrenched in the skin of her old face because of all the joy in her life, and all the folds of many furrowed brows that appeared in challenging times--signs of obstacles met and overcome, or not. I'm planning on still moving at a good pace when I'm in my seventies. I'm planning on not really retiring, unless I take a year or two off to travel.

How wise are we, right now? We'd like to think we're pretty damn smart, considering the shift in the overall ideals of this generation as compared to the previous ones, but think about it--the experiences that will season the wisdom we will call upon in our old age--these are the experiences we're supposed to be having right now! So don't just sit back and moan about how life is already stopping just because we have to bow our heads down and keep our noses to the grindstone--it's still fucking moving, people! The light doesn't get any greener than right now!

But, by all means--call yourself old, call yourself fat, call yourself ugly, call yourself too weird to allow yourself to function in any part of society. You're stating it, I'm just agreeing with it. I happen to think you're beautiful. Really, it's amazing how much a mind can change--I see more beauty in every person and every thing on this planet than I did three years ago. And I don't just mean beauty on the inside--I mean on the outside too, baby.

I'm almost to the breaking point of giving a fuck about what people, and what society (the patriarchal majority of it, anyway) says about you, and what you should be, and how you should be. I'm holding onto what little tact and respect I have left for that part of society so I can maintain a (minimum) living wage.

Wanna lose weight? Great. Wanna not? Great. Wanna be too loud? Sure. Don't wanna talk to a lot of people? Okay. I'm not gonna tell you how to be. Nobody else should, either.

But here:

You are what you eat, you are what you say, you are what you think. You are who you are, you are how you are. You are what you do, you are how you do. You do? You are. So be.