A recent New York Times article on aging and weirdness basically confirms what many of us in midlife already suspected:
Aging is less about becoming elderly and more about becoming delightfully unhinged.
Honestly, thank God!
Because after the year I’ve had, I no longer possess the emotional bandwidth to pretend I care about things like:
- decorative throw pillows,
- the damn weather,
- networking events, or
- whether my socks “work” with my outfit.
Mortality has entered the chat.
The older I get, the more I understand why elders become gloriously specific humans. They suddenly:
- eat dinner at 4:37 pm,
- own seventeen scarves,
- talk about the sexual proclivities of their exes,
- have blood pressure opinions, and
- use phrases like “I don’t need that fuckin’ energy in my life.”
And honestly? They’re onto something.
When you’re young, your personality is basically a hostage negotiation with social acceptance.
By midlife, especially after enough heartbreak, illness, betrayal, and awkward dinner parties, you realize:
Normal is just collective fear wearing khakis.
So you start becoming yourself.
You wear the weird hat.
You cancel the thing.
You stop finishing books you hate.
You develop a passionate relationship with your orthopedic pillow.
Freedom, finally.
The irony is that younger people think aging means becoming invisible.
No. Aging means becoming harder to domesticate.
You stop performing. You stop auditioning. You stop pretending you like tequila bars where everyone screams over music that sounds like a blender fighting for its life.
You start choosing a hair color that matches your mood.
And maybe that’s wisdom:
Not becoming less strange with age.
But finally becoming strange enough to be real.
-Chip