I never want to turn forty and I hate cliches–and this is how those two ideas come together. I have a friend, a work friend, who just turned forty years old. But he looks and definitely acts very young. I don’t see him as any older than me, most of the time. So he and his wife, whose birthdays are both close together, decided to have a party in Norfolk this past Friday to celebrate this occassion. The theme was “Boggie Nights” and appropriate retire was requested. Ugh, I thought, as I read the invitation. You must be fucking kidding me. So, this meant that not only did I have to spend the entire last two weeks trying to think of the right present, but also, I had to find some 70’s clothes–so this was really gonna cost me some time, and some money. And I would have to drive to Norfolk. Eventually I made my way to this cute little vintage store on Robinson St. called Halycion, or something like that. The woman who owns the store is awesome and showed me a whole bunch of outfits I could wear. But I didn’t want to be overly decked out, one because manbe no one else would be, and two, becuase I thought I might want to go out after the party. We finally agreed on a fire engine red pair of bellbottoms with the oh so awesome 1970’s high waste that comes up just below your bellybutton. These pants, in conjunction with a cute black tank top and super high platform shoes, made just the right outfit. And the lady in the store is really fantastic. We had a great conversation about Iron and Wine. If you ever need vintage clothing, check out this store. But back to my story.
All this work and the party, which was at the Granby St theatre in Norfolk, was so contrived it was cliche. When I turn forty, and I am not looking forward to that at all, I think I will just have dinner with friends. I hate contrived social situations. I don’t want to deck out some fancy theatre with disco balls and strobe lights and then buy everyone I know beer and food all night and spend the whole night justifying why certain people came and other didn’t. And make my so called friends listen to disco! Never. Not fun. Generic. Cliche. And that is why I don’t ever want to turn forty, and if I do, I’d rather not disco.
But this topic begs a more profound question. At what point do you lose sight of what is cliche? And will you be aware of it? I would like to say yes, i will be aware of it, but of course the answer is no–you will not know, or maybe you just wont’ care. It’s hard to imagine getting older when in your head you still feel young. Often, I am tempted to say 23, when someone asks me my age. I can’t control getting older, but I certainly hope I can control how I celebrate it.
