Yesterday I posted a picture and mentioned my forehead wrinkles and my crinkly neck. Lots of you kindly reminded me not to shit on myself for aging.
I want to be more clear. It was an observation. I am aging. And I don’t give a shit. I can’t do anything about it. And in fact, I am kind of proud of it. Because it beats the alternative, right?
We age. Right up until the moment we take our last breath we are hurtling towards our imminent death. People tell me pretty often “I am dying!” when I ask them how they are doing in the gym. I always answer the same, “we are all dying, it’s a matter of when.” Sometimes I point out that I am not much of a gambler but I would put money on the likelihood that it isn’t looking like we are going to die today. I suppose that is my own little way of practicing gratitude. I am really setting the bar high, huh? Gonna give it everything I have to live all damn day!
This is a picture of two packages that I need to return. This I really give a shit about it.
It annoys me to no end because it is within my control.
I hate that I don’t ever put the top all the way back on things and regularly spill shit everywhere when I pick it back up. I wish I was a person that used everything in my fridge and didn’t throw stuff away. There is a little shame involved in each fridge clean out. Every time a dentist asks me about my flossing I just smile weakly and say “not often enough.” I buy athletic equipment when I am not training enough. I swear a lot in front of my kids and I wonder if I am fucking them up.
Before you think that my aging gracefully is a sign of some kind of radical self-acceptance – rest assured that I have a laundry list of things about myself that need work. I am going to take those returns to the appropriate drop off points today. I will probably not screw all the tops on everything that I put back in the refrigerator. (Sorry, MQD.) I might make a list of things that I can cook with the stuff I have in my fridge and I might even cook them. But I might not.
And I am not going to kick the shit out of myself about any of these things. Because in the end I always come back to the same truth. If I really cared about it, I could change it. And if I haven’t? Well, then I guess it just doesn’t bother me that much. There is tremendous peace in that.
I hope that everything on your Give a Shit list is something you can do something about. If something has been on that list for a long time and you haven’t done anything about it take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself if you actually give a shit or if you just think that you should. There is freedom in erasing things from the list not because they are finished or changed but because you decided you just don’t actually give a shit.
I suppose this is my own version of The Serenity Prayer, huh? Only in my version I grant myself the serenity and there is a little more swearing.
Edited to add: I just took “Swearing in front of my kids” off the list. I do not, in fact, give a shit about that after all. See how easy this is?!