Things that happened since I've started getting old

Same, Annie Lee, same.

Hello girls and gays,

How are you doing in the midst of this dystopian world ? I hope you're managing to find pockets of peace, love and joy. For my part, I've started a new job and it's been an exhausting two months. It's unstable, repetitive and poorly paid, but at least it's money in my very empty bank account and I can do it from home, half-dead on my bed. What more can a disabled little girlie living with a chronic illness and chronic fatigue ask for? Actually, she can ask for a lot of things, but hey, it's the recession, the job market isn't marketing at all and the 2019-2023 period that saw an increase in remote jobs and the possibility of better employment for the disabled seems to have ended, so that'll do for now. Besides, spring is here, the sun is out and, at least, my body doesn't ache as much anymore. All in all, I’ve been worse.

I'm turning 35 this year (who would have thought? not me) and I've noticed some things that have happened to me or are starting to happen to me-beside the fact that I am exhausted at all time. So I wanted to share those things with you. In this life, you blink and you realize wih shock and horror that the words '“back in my days” have made their way into your vocabulary. That’s where we’re at my millennial people, that’s where we’re at.

So here's the non-exhaustive list of things I've noticed that have started happening to me as I head into middle age.

• I started drinking coffee. Yes, you read that right, even I can't believe it. I've never drunk coffee regularly in my life. My whole body is extremely sensitive and on the rare occasions when I did drink it, my heart rate would accelerate so much that I could almost feel it in my ears, which is normal since it's a stimulating substance, but I felt the stimulation too much and so only reserved it for extreme cases, like when I had 5 hours' sleep and had to be efficient the next day. But guess who's been waking up now, dragging herself to the kitchen to make her little café au lait since she started her new job? I can't even recognize myself, Who am I really? Am I going to turn into those people you can't speak to before they've had their morning coffee? Time will tell.

• I started eating dark chocolate, and liking it. Maybe science is right after all, your tastebuds change as you go older. This came as a surprise, as I've never liked chocolate. Milk chocolate makes me nauseous, and on the rare occasions when dark chocolate had found its way into my mouth, I've thought “who's the sadist who invented this?”. My home country is one of the world's leading cocoa producers, but because of all the -isms you know, we don't really consume chocolate like that. I found the chocolate craze very bizarre when I moved to Europe. Speaking of which, next week I'm performing a poem at a black poetry event here in Paris. I'll be sharing my poem “Chocolate” with an audience the first time. It's a poem I wrote when I was at my deepest in 2019; it was supposed to be part of a filmed performance called “decolonial fiction” for a festival in Québec, but Covid struck and the festival was canceled. I’m familiar with a stage but it’s the first time I am going to be alone on a stage so I am a bit nervous. You should come if you're in the area (Yes, I know I write in English on an American platform and that most of you dear readers, will not be in Paris next week, but you never know.)

• I started to think that young people are a bit stupid. No, but aren't they? I suppose not. I never thought I'd be one of those “it was better in my day” people, but I notice a general lack of intellectualism, even anti-intellectualism among people born after the year 2000. Perhaps this only happens on the Internet. But in real life, it seems they're not as alert as we were at the same age. I mean, it's classic, every generation thinks the same about the previous ones. Plus, I don't think they're helped by the fact that they spend their whole lives online,marinating in the terrible rhetorics you see everywhere on social media platforms. Then there's the recession, fascism is on the rise, there's a war on sexy, there's a war on intelligence, women's reproductive rights are threatened; and everywhere, young men are being manospherized en masse, as if men as a social class weren't insufferable enough as it is, now they're growing up misogynazistic. Black Jesus takes the wheel. All that to say, I wouldn't have liked to be a teenager or even a young adult today, that's for sure, so I guess we can give them a break. The kids will be alright.

• I know it's a privilege, but I feel like it's only in the last five to seven years and around the time I moved to Abidjan, that I've opened my eyes to the wickedness of people. I mean, growing up in France, I knew about systemic nastiness, the big evil, but my time in West Africa really showed me the low level of wickedness, the nastiness of normal people. Jealousy, backstabbing, hypocrisy, cowardice, distrust, one-sided competition, using people and then dropping them, and all that jazz. It was probably accentuated by a harsher social reality and the fact that I was suddenly immersed in social dynamics I wasn't used to before. But tchai! I learned the hard way. 2023-2024 was the year of realization for me. Learning that I'm neurodivergent also shed a different light on my past. I'm still going through the process of learning what it means for my life and yesterday I have decided to take an autism test. Since 2023, I've had many “oh wow, so that was what was happeing ? ” moments. For better or worse, but mostly for worse. It's sad, but I have to admit that this test has made me a more reserved, more closed person, much less generous with my energy, light and ressources, even though I don't want to be because it's so far from my original nature. I'm still trying to find the balance between no longer letting people tek mi fi eediat and not closing myself off to meaningful connections.

• This one is common I believe, I’ve started living by the rule : If I am not out of my house by 8pm, I am not going out. It’s simple. I’m taking my melatonin and turning on Netflix. Don’t invite me to stuff that start at 10, 11 pm of even after 12pm. The thing is, if the vibes are great and I have energy I could even stay outside late but I need to live my house before the calling of my comfy bed gets too loud. I love parties that start at 5 of 6pm, the paroxysm is at 8 -9pm, and by 11pm I’m in bed. Those are perfect, there should be more of those. I know they’re called Afterwork but I feel there should be more good Afterworks or brunch parties. Also don’t invite me to stuff if I can’t sit, in my particular case I am disabled but people are old and tired man, we are not spring chickens anymore, bring some comfy chairs to your events.

• This one is also common but is worth mentioning : all the little aches and pains appearing from nowhere ? (on top of what I already have, is having a human body a curse or what ?). It takes a lot more effort to maintain a regular level of wellness, and when you fall of, your body won’t let you forget. Eat your greens and don’t forget to stretch regularly my people!

• Last but not least : My body's getting so flaccid! Oh my God, what's happening? I didn't think this would happen so quickly. I've noticed that my breasts, the most beautiful part of my body, my crown jewels, are getting softer, flabbier. It's probably due to my weight fluctuations, but I know it's mostly due to the combination of time passing and gravity. I haven't worn a bra since 2015, but now I'm considering it? What's happening to me? What next? I will start shaving legs again ? Thanks to genetics I've always had a firm body even when I had put on a lot weight in a short amount of time, but todo tiene su final, nada dura para siempre apparently. Same for my thighs, my tummy? let's not talk about it, I have endometriosis and the endobelly often makes me look four months pregnant. I never thought I had so much vanity because I've considered myself unattractive for most of my life, but my body is gently floating away from what is part of the beauty standard,I must admit that I’m panicking sometimes . Beyond vanity, it's a matter of life moving too fast and in the change of your carnal envelope, the difficulty of realizing that you're definitely not the same person anymore and you won't be. At the same time, when I was in my twenties, I always admired the fact that older women had a kind of “weight” on their bodies. Not always in the literal sense, but I could see that their breasts, their bodies had been through things, like childbirth, breastfeeding for instance. I’ve always thought it was beautiful and a few summers ago, I’ve started to notice this “weight” on my body too, like I'm part of the “women who have lived” gang now and I'm glad I'm here to be honest, I am glad I am still alive.

Alright, that’s it for me (for now). What about you my dear reader, what small things have started happening to you as you are getting older ? Let me know

Bye !