Achieving peak middle age

One rocking Friday night in Spring 2025, I lay on my couch phone chatting with a friend.

After yet another week of impending existential doom at work, with a brain of mush and a body that really should have done some more yoga, a weekend loomed gloriously ahead with nothing on the calendar.

Nothing except, of course, doing chores. And prepping for exciting things ahead. More on that later.

The prep included a late-night revelation that if I reorganized my storage closet YET AGAIN - seriously, this has been a thing basically since the election, controlling what I can control, I suppose? - I could make prepping for a hike so much easier.

The prep also included the most sexy of adulting chores ever, other than buying new tires: reevaluating my car insurance to see if I could save money.

It was this I was chatting about with my friend. Because while I’m considering travel insurance for a cool trip coming up, and pet insurance because a new dog is on my horizon*, it’s the car insurance that needed the immediate attention, and made me feel the most, well…boring 49-year-old-ish.

“If I decide to do some yard work this weekend,” I mused, “I’ll achieve peak middle age.”

Fast forward to this morning, and I do believe I have achieved it.

I did the yardwork. I pulled a ton of weeds. I laid down mulch, hung another string of patio lights. I swept the entire patio of dirt and dust. I filled three bags of yard waste and actually used hedge clippers and a rake.

I donned my reading glasses, pulled up my policy documents, and changed the car insurance, which did save a few hundred bucks. Score.

Just this morning, I finished the late-night closet reorg, and came away with one thought: I need to buy a label-maker. If that doesn’t scream mid-life, I don’t know what does.

So do my sore in the hamstrings and lower back, because…did I mention I did yard work?

You might think I’m upset by all this adulting and middle-age-ing. You’d be incorrect. Well, except for the whole needing reading glasses thing. Man, that sucks.

But I digress. First of all, putting things in order is soothing, and most days, I get a giant kick out of not being “young” any more. I’m learning how to care less what people think - to have fewer f#%s to give, if you will - and to really enjoy these days when I figure out to adult just that little bit more successfully.

Frankly, I enjoy the memes out there from all the millennial content creators who’ve just discovered that as you get older, your body gets creakier. I laugh that we Gen X-ers have mostly moved on from this revelation because we figured this out a while ago, and honestly, our bodies have been hurting most of our lives since we ate all that processed food in our youth and ran around in flip flops all day long.

So, pass the Fruit Loops, will ya? I need some fuel to go self-detail my car and buy that label maker. Yes, I will be groaning as I straighten up after vacuuming and will harumph when I have to put my reading glasses on to place the order.

That’s just peak middle age.

And I’m actually going hiking instead of cleaning my car. Because while I might be middle-aged, I can still knock off a bunch of miles in the rain with 20+ pounds on my back. Grrr.

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*This post needs a picture, and since I hinted at the dog thing, here’s one of the dog I’m adopting. Her name is Midnight, and she’s got quite the story. I’m sure you’ll be hearing about it soon.