I don’t feel old, you feel old

I don’t feel old, you feel old

I turned 27 years old this week.

I missed writing about my 26th birthday last year. 26 was hard (harder than 25). It was like stepping over a threshold I didn’t know was there.

But 27?

27 didn’t faze me at all. Not really. The day was pretty relaxed and that was just what I wanted and needed. 27 was like stepping into a room, taking a look around, and feeling at home.

I do feel old some days. But that just feels normal now.

This blog post is harder to write than I thought it would be. For my 25th birthday I gave myself 5 things to work on. I don’t want to give myself any more work for this year; I have enough on my plate right now. It occurred to me that I could a different kind of list, but that felt force and insincere. I got to #4 and had to delete it.

Instead, I think I want to talk about what happened on Thursday, my 2nd day of being 27.

Thursday was a tough day. I went in to work at 8am like I always do, but this time it was on the heels of working a 12.5-hour day on Wednesday. So I was tired. And naturally, it became a day that would have been challenging under normal circumstances.

A lot of work I did on Wednesday caused some ripple effects on Thursday, so I spent a good part of the morning onsite at a couple different clinics. Which is fine, I don’t mind.

I want to be clear that while work was challenging, it wasn’t even close to the hardest part of Thursday. And it didn’t make me feel old.

Over my lunch break I went and read with my buddy that I mentor. I do this every Thursday. I’ve probably mentioned it before.

Without going into too many details, my buddy made me exercise a muscle I had almost forgotten I have.

Our time started out a little rough, but we turned it around and enjoyed our reading. He drew me a picture of a farmhouse in a snowstorm. I showed him a picture of the cow that keeps getting into our yard and the possum that fell in our window well. We had a good time. And then the minute it came to transition again, things started to fall apart.

I know this kid. I’ve known him for a long time. I know that transitions are hard sometimes, especially when he doesn’t want to do the next thing or he feels like he’s being cheated out of something else. We had both of those things working against us on Thursday.

At one point I was standing the hallway, holding my book and his library books, waiting for him to slide toward me on his belly. And then I took a few more steps and waited for him to crawl. We had to take a break for him to pout in a corner.

Some of you are reading this and your skin’s crawling. This kind of display tends to illicit a certain kind of response. A hyper-emotional response. In the past I probably would have been embarrassed and frantic and willing to do anything to end the chaos. I may have given in and let him get whatever he wanted.

But on Thursday? On Thursday I just stood and patiently waited.

He complained that this other activity would have helped him get his energy out. I told him that his choice to crawl and slide on the floor was doing plenty to use up whatever extra energy he had.

He yelled that he was just so angry. I asked him if he was mad at me. He said, “No, of course not.” And I said, “Good, because this really doesn’t have anything to do with me.” He sighed and said, “I know.”

He did eventually stand up and chose to walk beside me for the longest stretch of hallway. Which I was thankful for.

When we did finally make it to our destination I told him I was proud of him for making it there. He hugged me and thanked me for coming.

I got in my car and wanted to cry out of relief. There were moments when I wanted to quit in that hallway. But what would have happened then? Sometimes quitting isn’t an option.

As much as I hated having to flex this muscle, I’m glad I still have it.