BECAUSE OF YOUR AGE

Piosonberry

1 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Piosonberry"

I have a doctor's appointment coming up in a couple of weeks to see how things are going with my cholesterol medicine. To prepare, I had to have some blood drawn for my visit and while I was in the lab, the technician handed me a cup and said "your doctor has also requested a urine sample." I let me lip frown to one side when the technician said this. I had not prepared for a urine test (not because of drugs). I had prepared for the blood draw by doing a twelve hour fast. I only had a little bit of water that morning to wash down my vitamins. I looked at that cup and thought I would be lucky if I could give them a teaspoon. Also, I looked at the cup and the three vials of blood they took from my arm and got a little nervous about all of this testing business. When I voiced this nervousness to Michael, he said "It's probably just because of your age." which made me kind of want to shove him down a flight of stairs.

I say 'kind of' only because I do not have the energy to care for his invalid ass. 

I am not an old person! Forty one is not old! Maybe it's a little bit old. I have noticed that there's an increase in the white hairs on my head. There's a grouping of white that is starting to form a streak through my bangs, but I think it is pretty cool. It's like having highlights without going through the process of getting highlights. But we all know that graying hair is not indicative of age. Sure there are days when I feel like an old woman. I look at the things that have happened to me in my life and it seems like all of it should not fit into forty one years of life. This makes me feel older than my actual years and disappointed that I am not really all that wiser. Then there are the days when I crawl out of bed to the tune of my cracking joints and I have to gimp my way to the bathroom and think "Jesus! Have I been abducted by aliens and returned to earth as a hundred year old woman?" Then I look out the bathroom window toward the skies and beg them to come back and get me and return me back to my supple youthful body. 

As if I have ever had a supple body.

I'm still very much young. I speed to work every day on my scooter. Last week I performed a perfect cartwheel with out incident. In fact, just the other day, I had a total childish impulse to steal something from Target. Our Target could use a little feng shui help in the area of their front doors. When you walk in the doors, the shopping carts are immediately to your left. Four steps across from the carts is that area where they have all those dollar items of kid things and crafts. Immediately to the left of the shopping carts are the exit doors. See...it seems like I've already cased the joint. To replace your shopping cart correctly back in any kind of order out of the way, you have to walk back through the dollar section. On Saturday, I paid for my items in the self check-out line and then pushed my cart towards the door. I paused and looked around at the already scattered carts and decided that I was going to return my shopping cart to its proper place in the cart corral. Then, as I passed a rack of various dollar craft items, I had the most sudden, intense urge to just grab something and stick in my shopping bag. I thought, very matter of factly, "I'm going to steal something." 

I did NOT steal anything, but the urge to do so was so shockingly intense. It was the most compulsive urge that I still can't believe I walked out of there without slipping something into my shopping bag. Something is cracked in my brain or maybe I'm just in a place right where I'm all "fuck it!" I just don't care. Crap...I just realized that's not a youthful feeling. Teenagers care about everything. I don't really care about anything. Well, that's not really true. I care about what I can do in my neighborhood to fight racism; I'm calling my local community center to see about teaching a yoga class there. I care about the environment and equal rights. I care about the masses of uneducated, misinformed Americans because their ignorance led to the election of Donald Fucking Trump as our president. But apparently I don't care if I get caught stealing a dollar item from Target. At least, that is what my brain was telling me on Saturday.

Maybe it is because of my age. Because of my age, I care very little about what others think of me. Because of my age, I have a little bit more wisdom. Because of my age, I'm becoming a klepto.