Much Too Old To Feel This Damn Young?
................
"It's just dots?" she asked herself. "Yup, just dots."
While I'm in the mood to finish old posts I started long ago, here's one I originally entitled, "Old Soul, Young Soul". It was from July of 2018, and the only thing I had in it besides the title was the dots, now preserved for all time, mere placeholders for actual thoughts that I'm just quirky enough to plant here now.
The new title has a question mark with it. As always, these things rarely feel definitive when I write them. Some feel that way when I'm done writing, but this one doesn't feel at all like it needs to be. It's just musings on life. I've stolen the new title from my favorite Garth Brooks song. I heard it in the car this morning while driving my daughter to her practice, and decided to see what came to mind around the fact I always seemed to live as if I were older than my actual age. It's no longer the case.
There's a certain romanticism, I guess, that I enjoy in cowboy songs and movies sometimes. The simple approach cowboys seem to take to a seemingly less complicated life can be a draw for anyone who lives in a fast-paced, high tech world. The cowboy rides into town, finds his adversary, deals with his adversary, saves the day in a direct sorta way, and then at the end, as another George Strait song I love declares, "this is where the cowboy rides away" and the screen fades to black.
I like that idea very much, and used to dream of it, just disappearing one day. The curiosity around the Brooks song is that while I used to always feel I had that "old soul" and seemed to live beyond my actual years, I now feel quite different. Despite all my troubles at home and all around me, I feel quite young. The question mark in the title is just in reference to how odd it seems to be in life that many of us never quite feel our chronological age.
I've always had a tendency to gravitate towards the older things. I learned my music from my mom, and my older cousin. It's not changed much to this day. I love that music and always will. I have more of an open mind on new things than I used to but feel no need to change tastes. If they evolve, great. My friends are all a bit older than me, and I learn from them, never thinking they are "old". To me, they're just a perfect fit.
A while back, in my shortest post ever, I asked the question, "how old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" I semi-facetiously said at the time that I would be 12. That's what I'm elaborating on here, I guess. My heart and mind have absolutely no clue that I'm 45 years old. And in terms of the girlhood I never really had, and that teenage-like angst now of trying to overcome the lost years, as many trans people do, feeling THAT young can actually be scarier than it might seem.
I'm not dwelling on that today, at all. It's part of it, but I'm very grateful that I have this new lease on life, fraught with peril though it may be. Something HAS been unlocked inside. And the great thing is, I can mix and match the young and the not-so-young. Any of us can, at any point in life. Just like gender itself, it's just a bunch of made-up rules. Most of which have no legal standing, so why obey them?
I'm not saying necessarily that folks my age should dress like teenagers in public, hearkening back to the idea of, AM I too old to wear this outfit? The answer is no, yet for me, I'm still going to present myself in a way I can be proud of. There's great fun with riding the line of what society deems acceptable. I find it a challenge. Because my SOUL is still young enough to want to do so.
If I have any point here as I wrap this up, it's that age is a state of mind way more than it is miles on the body's odometer. Crossdressers and trans people have a great tendency to want to make up for lost time, and that's perfectly ok; it makes sense if you think about it. Others might not get it, thus contributing to the perception that we are perverted freaks. Not only do they see us dressing the "wrong way", they see us often dressing the "wrong age". It's something to keep in mind, but again, there's no law against it.
I hope this message finds you feeling young and in good spirits. Age ain't nothing but a number!
"It's just dots?" she asked herself. "Yup, just dots."
While I'm in the mood to finish old posts I started long ago, here's one I originally entitled, "Old Soul, Young Soul". It was from July of 2018, and the only thing I had in it besides the title was the dots, now preserved for all time, mere placeholders for actual thoughts that I'm just quirky enough to plant here now.
The new title has a question mark with it. As always, these things rarely feel definitive when I write them. Some feel that way when I'm done writing, but this one doesn't feel at all like it needs to be. It's just musings on life. I've stolen the new title from my favorite Garth Brooks song. I heard it in the car this morning while driving my daughter to her practice, and decided to see what came to mind around the fact I always seemed to live as if I were older than my actual age. It's no longer the case.
There's a certain romanticism, I guess, that I enjoy in cowboy songs and movies sometimes. The simple approach cowboys seem to take to a seemingly less complicated life can be a draw for anyone who lives in a fast-paced, high tech world. The cowboy rides into town, finds his adversary, deals with his adversary, saves the day in a direct sorta way, and then at the end, as another George Strait song I love declares, "this is where the cowboy rides away" and the screen fades to black.
I like that idea very much, and used to dream of it, just disappearing one day. The curiosity around the Brooks song is that while I used to always feel I had that "old soul" and seemed to live beyond my actual years, I now feel quite different. Despite all my troubles at home and all around me, I feel quite young. The question mark in the title is just in reference to how odd it seems to be in life that many of us never quite feel our chronological age.
I've always had a tendency to gravitate towards the older things. I learned my music from my mom, and my older cousin. It's not changed much to this day. I love that music and always will. I have more of an open mind on new things than I used to but feel no need to change tastes. If they evolve, great. My friends are all a bit older than me, and I learn from them, never thinking they are "old". To me, they're just a perfect fit.
A while back, in my shortest post ever, I asked the question, "how old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" I semi-facetiously said at the time that I would be 12. That's what I'm elaborating on here, I guess. My heart and mind have absolutely no clue that I'm 45 years old. And in terms of the girlhood I never really had, and that teenage-like angst now of trying to overcome the lost years, as many trans people do, feeling THAT young can actually be scarier than it might seem.
I'm not dwelling on that today, at all. It's part of it, but I'm very grateful that I have this new lease on life, fraught with peril though it may be. Something HAS been unlocked inside. And the great thing is, I can mix and match the young and the not-so-young. Any of us can, at any point in life. Just like gender itself, it's just a bunch of made-up rules. Most of which have no legal standing, so why obey them?
I'm not saying necessarily that folks my age should dress like teenagers in public, hearkening back to the idea of, AM I too old to wear this outfit? The answer is no, yet for me, I'm still going to present myself in a way I can be proud of. There's great fun with riding the line of what society deems acceptable. I find it a challenge. Because my SOUL is still young enough to want to do so.
If I have any point here as I wrap this up, it's that age is a state of mind way more than it is miles on the body's odometer. Crossdressers and trans people have a great tendency to want to make up for lost time, and that's perfectly ok; it makes sense if you think about it. Others might not get it, thus contributing to the perception that we are perverted freaks. Not only do they see us dressing the "wrong way", they see us often dressing the "wrong age". It's something to keep in mind, but again, there's no law against it.
I hope this message finds you feeling young and in good spirits. Age ain't nothing but a number!
fantastic as always Shannyn
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