I'm about to have a birthday so I'm getting introspective. Bear with me.

The older I get, the more I understand, well, a lot of stuff I guess.  But recently I have been thinking a lot about what is "appropriate" behavior for people at various ages.  We talk about how children should act a certain way and if a 10-year-old is throwing a temper tantrum, down on the floor actually thrashing around in a full-scale screaming fit, then the majority of folks agree that the child in question is too old to be doing something like that.  We get older and make mistakes and someone says, "You are old enough to have known better". Or maybe we say that to ourselves in certain instances. It keeps going on and on and at various ages and in various stages of our lives there are societal norms that we are expected to adhere to.  Or rather, they are there and people think we should adhere to them. 

As I get older I am struck by how I refuse to have those "norms" apply to me at times.  Actually, that's not an accurate statement because I'm not a rebellious person and I'm not bucking convention or anything like that, but I'm not sure how to phrase what makes total sense in my head.  *sigh*  Story of my life.  Anysnootch,  I'm nearly 41-years-old and standard/normal/traditional/whatever society says I should be married with a couple of kids and a house in the burbs and a nice little job with a nice little life. Or maybe that is my assumption of what I believe society thinks.  Or maybe I'm right.  Meh. Whatever.  Back to anysnootching...Whatever it is I'm supposed to be is not what I am. Or maybe what I am is exactly what I am supposed to be (I think I'm finally on the right track here...), but for some reason it doesn't seem to be what I should be. How I should be/act/think/whatever.



Attempting to get back to my original thought processes... When I was younger I used to think that adults should act a certain way, behave in a certain manner. They didn't go out to bars and clubs and stayed home with their kids and had family game nights and basically grew up and calmed down and changed who they were.  But you can't change who you are, not down at your core.  Who we are is who. we. are. no matter what age we are. So as I grow older I'm just becoming more of who I have always been. I'm still not really sure just who that is or who I will ultimately be when I die - which could be tomorrow or could be 40 years down the road - but I appreciate having the knowledge and self-awareness that while the thoughts we think and the opinions we have may change over time, who we are won't necessarily change on some basic levels.  Hopefully that means we'll all become better, not worse, versions of ourselves as we age and grow, but again, it's nice to know that if I live to be 90, I'll still be me.  Probably still listening to 80s hair bands and thinking David Bryan is super hot (although if I live to be 90 he'll be 101), refusing to wear makeup unless I have no choice and, knowing me, still bleaching my hair blond.  Or maybe just wearing that hot pink wig I've always wanted...