I'm Getting Old, But That's Really Not So Bad

It dawned on me Friday night: I'm getting old, and I couldn't be happier about it.

When I was 18, the thought of a Friday night without plans would have fallen somewhere between the 6th and 7th layer of Hell.  In fact, the only thing worse than not having plans on a Friday night would have been a public pronouncement to everyone I know that I didn't have plans on a Friday night.
 
When I was 25, the idea of a Friday night at home didn't wreck my sense of self-worth in quite the same way, but it most definitely left me depressed, questioning whether I somehow took the wrong path in life that led me to this place of quiet, uneventful desperation.

Last weekend, at age 34, I didn't have plans on Friday night. Or Saturday. Or even Sunday.  And after a busy and exhausting week at work, I could not have possibly been happier about it.

What has become of me?

I got old.

The weekend isn't a time to party anymore, it's a time to rest and relax, or maybe catch up with friends. There's a fun guy inside of me capable of moderate bouts of unpredictable adventures, but he doesn't have to bust out every single weekend, or even every other.

Here's what I've learned: when we are young and insecure, we need weekend plans to validate our existence. To prove that we are interesting, we need to constantly do interesting things with interesting people.  Maybe we have more energy too, but we also have a need to prove to ourselves that our lives are going somewhere.

Not anymore.  I don't have anything left to prove to myself, or the world.  I've traveled all over, found the love of my life, and I wouldn't trade my close friends for anyone else's anywhere. 

At this stage, if I don't have plans on a weekend it doesn't mean I'm a failure. It just means I had a busy week and need to relax.

It's still nice to have weekend plans sometimes. Time with friends rejuvenates the spirit, and doing fun stuff helps us plow through when the obligations of life feel like a grind. But my life no longer feels empty if I spent a weekend here or there catching up on sleep and watching travel shows.

When I was young, I felt like I had to accept any invitation, no matter how unappealing, if it was the only way to avoid a weekend night home alone.  Maybe I'm old now, but I'm glad those days are over.

Growing old means my joints creak, my knees and back often ache and I can't get out of bed without grunting. It means I go the bathroom at the same times every day and that my day is offtrack if my morning routine gets sabotaged.

It means I'm only a pretty good basketball player now, and people no longer ask for my autograph at the conclusion of my pick-up games, as used to actually happen sometimes.

One day, growing old will mean that I wear ugly checkered pants entirely too high on my waist, and that I won't be able to hear when people snicker at me for doing so. It will mean my hair will recede, that I'll insist on talking about how things used to be, and that I'll think all the modern music sucks even more than I already do.

Of course. I'd love to be able to dominate a basketball court the same way I could 10 years ago. But otherwise, the tradeoff isn't all that bad.

Getting older means that I'm comfortable enough in my own skin to know what I like to do with my free time, and to also stay home and do nothing if I feel the need.  And just as importantly, it means that I can tell you that fact without fear that you'll think I'm a loser.

Because I'm not.  I'm just getting old.