Boogaloo!

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As Bob Seger would say "Now seventeen has turned thirty-one." Or in my case, thirty-two. Even better is this weirdo lyric by Ringo Star : "Now I'm only thirty-two and all I want to do, is boogaloo!" Whatever that means, but I guess I'm on board. I know that Age is just a number, a tally, and really quite meaningless, but I do feel different now that I've been thirty-two for two days. I guess it occurred to me that I am no longer on the fence, I am in my thirties now. I feel more confident, more solid. Once I was glass, but now I'm crystal, and more likely to chip than to shatter. 

It's not that my values have changed a ton over the years. Ten years ago I was going to nursing school and writing on the side. I was a vegetarian and spent every moment with my faithful first love, Shera the dog. I was exploring the woods every chance I got, roaming the streets, partying and making bad romantic choices. If you held up a mirror to my twenty-two year old self, added a hint of crow's feet around the eyes and erased the bad romantic choices, you'd have yours truly, circa 2014. "So what's the big deal?" you might ask. "Why not keep the whiney, fumbling lovers, ditch the wrinkles and take another stab at youth?" Well, I'll tell you the difference. Even though I was who I am back then and before, I didn't know that. Sure I liked the woods, but maybe by some fucked twist I would end up owning a condo in Manhattan. And yes, most of those boys I took home with me were dull witted and mean, but maybe one of them was my soulmate, who undoubtedly had long hair and wrote poetry. Now it is with the confidence of god that I say "I will never own a condo in Manhattan. " and "I will know if someone is right for me by how kind they are, not by how well they write poetry." So I guess you could say it's not that the meat of me wasn't there, it's that the gaps weren't filled in. If I were a man I would have worded that differently, maybe I should have either way. In any case, it's the gaps that make all the difference. 

And so, on that note, let me just wrap it up by saying there is no other time in which I have understood this much, or been this good, and right now I have no reason or desire to be anything else. So Boogaloo on!

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