Age has enormous benefits. I recently had the most embarrassing experience of my life that took place in front of a large group of people I see every day. And I feel nothing. In my twenties, I’d be suicidal over something like this. And now my reaction is, “oh, well. Whatever.”
I don’t even remember what it feels like to care what people think of me. I remembered it mattered enormously. But it was so long ago.
“Age has enormous benefits. I don’t even remember what it feels like to care what people think of me.”
CONGRATULATIONS , LADY! You’re barely into middle age, and you’ve already discovered one of the secrets that makes growing older not only tolerable but a blessing.
With your new wisdom, try not to laugh when you hear young people chatter (as they will from time to time) that if older people only had the choice, they’d jump at the chance to go back in time and be 21 again, and start running the gauntlet all over again.
“had the most embarrassing experience of my life”
You do realize that without more details… readers will create elaborate and baroque scenarios in their head about what happened.
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It’s a Zoom mishap, like everything these days. 🙂
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The sad kitten filter?
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Whenever some says Zoom mishap, my mind goes straight to Jeffrey Tubin.
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What Jeffrey Toobin did is not a mishap.
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I forgot to turn off the sound on a Zoom meeting with the rest of administrators and visited a bathroom with a flush system that sounds like a fighter jet at takeoff.
I’ve given birth twice and I’m on blood pressure medication. I can’t go for 4 hours without visiting the bathroom. I could turn off the sound but what fun would that be?
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Gosh, I already have the wisdom of 60, and it was enormously liberating to figure that out.
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When I was 20 I thought nobody thought about me, which was pleasant. When I was 30 I discovered they did and was horrified because they actually act on these thoughts. Since they I’ve gotten somewhat better at deflecting than I was initially, but I am nostalgic for my 20s, and before, because I did not think people were thinking about me.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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