The thing is: I've been sick (and frankly quite distracted) the past three days. Nothing horribly bad though - just fever and colds. I'd blame it on the shift in weather but I can offer no empirical proof of that. I elected to stay in and skip work today, which turned out to be a good thing because I am now feeling better.
I've also been trying to finish an article, which was almost impossible between the sneezing fits and runny nose, in addition to constantly relieving myself (TMI, I know) - a side effect of my more-than-regular intake of water. As a result, I only just sent in my draft a few minutes ago.
Which finally means BLOGGING TIME!
Now, this recent bout with viral monsters just brought into fore this week's subject, which I had already locked onto last Friday: Aging.
I was at Kopiroti that morning with my boss and a potential client when I noticed something on the glass panel in front of me.
My face has lines. My skin is sagging. I looked older and tired than I felt. It's ridiculous!
And I kid you not: I spent the entire meeting playing with the skin on my face, giving it a gentle stretch and was blown away by the difference.
Just the other week, both the client and the photographer, on separate occasions, noted the gray in my hair, which was apparently not as prominent two years ago when we had our first shoot. Coincidentally, it was during the shoot two years ago that I first noticed my bangs were thinning and my hairline was receding - something that Rej also noticed over dinner after one of those shoot days. Thankfully, neither had advanced since then.
I wish I could say that I'm bothered by this because I feel my youth slipping away and I haven't done much with my life - but no, it's really just the vanity. I know I'm really not much of a looker but I just didn't really think it could get worse! Seriously, my bathroom mirror apparently tells a different story because I always feel more invigorated every morning! Either that or my daily affirmations have been working too well and I've been blinded by the reality.
The same mirror did show me an unmistakable white nose hair, which freaked the shit out of me last week as well.
Well, anyway, I actually haven't been feeling 100% all of last week and that episode just made me feel even worse. So when Paul suddenly sent out an invite for drinks at Cubao X, my body was like "no, you have to rest" but the rest of me was like "Now is not the time to be an old man. Drink up on a Friday night. It's been a while". This after turning down an invitation from friends to party down south because the trip is exhausting.
So hell to the yeah! Drinks on Friday! Woohoo!
Except that the walk to Cubao X from the LRT-2, which I usually enjoy, was suddenly slow and excruciating! Then I get to the bar and my brain and my mouth were suddenly out of sync with each other - and I was sober! WHAT THE HELL?!
The good thing was that Paul and I had some spirited discussions about this very subject as well as some general rants about our shared industries. When asked how I was, I couldn't even bother to lie. "I feel old, fat, and ugly". Yes, I also recently noticed my jeans weren't fitting as well as they used to. Funny enough, Paul noticed the same thing a couple of weeks ago.
After drinks, Paul invited me back to their Purdue apartment, which was a bit of a walk and I was once again hesitant because of the effort but I went anyway. I hung out with Jovan for a while and she asked why I haven't been going to the Relik Quiz Night. Answer: The travel it takes to Bonifacio Global City is exhausting.
Then there was this article that has gone viral about 10 Life Lessons To Excel In Your 30s!
I suppose my biggest problem with aging is that I still feel like I'm 17. I've deliberately kept myself in the dark about many things because I want to keep that sense of wonder and awe. I don't crave to know everything. I don't need wisdom, which apparently is one of the benefits of getting older. I want to keep discovering new things as I go along. I'm not in a hurry but my body seems to be and I hate it. I just always thought that if I avoid stress, which is one of the reasons I stay with my job anyway, and get enough sleep, I could at least prolong these "signs of aging".
But what I realized is that the more I become knowledgeable about the world and myself, the more I become angry. I am much more critical of everything and everyone now than I was before and I suppose I have also now grown the balls to become vocal about them. On quiet days, my head would be noisy with all sorts of sentiments ranging from politics to social stigmas. Just this past weekend, butt-hurt Filipinos have been creeping into my consciousness and I've been trying my best to silence them.
Writing/blogging has always been my outlet, so I suppose I would like to find some resolution to this recent realization, no matter how pretentious. So here goes.
I can't stop aging. It will happen. It is happening - right before my eyes. And this isn't even the worst of it.
It's my attitude about it that I have control over. I can choose to fight it - and be exactly like the type of people I mock for doing so - or I can embrace it.
Or I can continue living with the sense of wonder of a 17-year old in a 30+ old man's body. I've been openly defying society's expectations this whole, why should this be any different?
To that end, gaming has definitely opened up new worlds for me to explore, a new-ish interest for me to delve into. Gaming has always been my brother's thing growing (up until now actually). Obviously, books and comics have always been my province. But last week, I got really excited about Kemco's RPGs and Kairosoft's simulation games on Google Play, which were my kind of games. Upon digging some more, I found more similar games and was flabbergasted that I had access to these titles the whole time! Meanwhile, GOG.com had a fire sale for some new games, which they hardly do, so I ended up getting a bunch from different genres, so I'm excited about that too. So yeah, I think I'm gonna get more into this whole gaming thing and update my "personal brand" as a means of deflecting my aging issues.
On a somewhat related note, the final scene of last week's How I Met Your Mother resonated with my feelings about the passage of time. It was very touching.
No comments:
Post a Comment