Too Old For This

I'm too old for this, is now a constant refrain of mine. 

I feel like I'm too old for a lot of things. Too old to be up at night with a toddler, too old for drama, too old to make certain mistakes. 

It's not just sighting a few gray hairs that has sent me over the edge. OK, maybe it has. (I shouldn't even complain, because half of my gene pool goes gray at 21, so this was a long time coming.) 

Nearly every single time I finish having a conversation with a friend, I kick myself for days afterward wondering, "Why did I SAY that?" 

Aren't I too old for this? Aren't I too old to keep shoving my foot in my mouth? 

Every time I despair that maybe taking a vow of silence would be less stressful than being allowed to yammer all day. 

Luckily, my friend doesn't seem to hold it against me and I try to bribe her forgiveness with baked goods. 

But I feel so weary, making the same boo boos that I committed so long ago. Because aren't I too old to keep my tongue running amok? 

Recently, I went to a client's office and had to sift through some documents, so I sat down cross-legged on the floor. An older woman at a desk nearby gaped (at least I think she did, we're all masked). "Only someone young could sit like that," she said, patting her "bad" hip. 

I was taken aback. Me? Young? 

I feebly complained about my back, which has finally become somewhat functional two years post Ben. She wasn't buying it. 

I guess age, like everything else, is relative. I wonder if there is hope, in my current sleep-deprived state of existence, to make the most of "youth" and get my mouth to behave. 

Prince Boring is King

I wasn't so jazzed about Bridgerton. I'm rather surprised at myself, considering my teenage diet of regency romances, but I found it frustrating. Just one aspect: the women claim to want love, but simultaneously, the higher title, the better. Ladies, you have to pick a lane. 

I have no intention of spending a post picking apart Bridgerton—I'm not that much of a killjoy—but I came across this article about how the Prince would have been the better choice for Daphne, title aside.  

But despite their chemistry, I found myself secretly, silently rooting for Daphne to say yes to her other suitor: unmysterious, dully predictable Prince Friedrich of Prussia. Go with the nice guy! I pleaded. Make it work! In the language of romance—settle. Settle! Settle for happiness, and not just the idea of it.

The idea of a love match—a Darcy and Elizabeth ending rather than, say, a Charlotte and Mr. Collins compromise—is a central theme in the show, and one I very much agree with. But while most marriage plots end with a marriage, Bridgerton is interested in what happens after the knot has been tied. And that is where things can get complicated.

OK, I have to admit, I don't understand this concept of "settling" for the nice guy. I wanted a nice guy. I searched for the nice guy. Thank God, I found the nice guy. Bad boys? Cool dudes? No thank you. I've never had any interest in them. I'm guessing that they're initially exciting, but they get old reeeeeaaaaaal quick.

Rooting for the stable guy doesn’t mean marrying some dud over your true love. It’s not like I think Buttercup should’ve taken a second look at Humperdinck and said, “Wow, this guy seems to have better prospects than a pirate—better stick with him.” But while Daphne and Simon proved me wrong, for a while there he was giving off some serious Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility vibes. And fans of the novel know, it’s Col. Brandon, Marianne Dashwood’s older, kinder, overlooked suitor, who turns out to be her real soul mate after the dashing Willoughby throws her over. It’s the difference between the intensity of romantic love and the sustaining love that carries you forward when you are in the foxhole together, facing loss and sorrow and hardship and boredom and birth.

I've seen a few gals I know, capable, steady women, who married guys who have the whole brooding Marlon Brando thing going for them, and I wonder—is he going to be supportive when you have a bad day at the office? Or will he shrug and head out for a smoke?

Eons ago (well, it feels like eons) I read a book called Kristen Lavransdatter and wrote a post about it. It pretty much backs Nordberg's point. It seems to be a favorite angle with Austen too: beware of the charming, handsome smoothie. Colonel Brandon is one of my favorite characters (while I'm a fan of Alan Rickman, he was already 49 in the 1995 version, so that was not good casting. David Morrissey in the 2008 adaptation suited me perfectly); he proves himself to be the reliable, caring, considerate suitor that Marianne eventually appreciates (or marries on the rebound. I don't think he cared).