The Vagaries of Age

As I find myself firmly planted in middle age, I'm discovering that getting older is both better and worse than I had anticipated. On the whole, my life is better than it's ever been, but there are certain aspects of aging that really just blow.

Things I Like About Getting Older

• Financial Independence. I'm in far better shape financially than I thought I would be. Of course, I'm in my prime earning years, so I may feel differently by the time I'm sixty. But for now, go, me.
• My Hair. After over two years of wondering who the hell that is in the mirror, I'm finally used to my silver hair, and I like it. Maybe because 80% of women in this country dye their hair, and I'm just a rebel at heart.

Things I Hate About Getting Older

• My neck. What the hell is going on with my neck?
• My internal thermostat is on the blink. My body is like a furnace, radiating heat into the atmosphere on a daily basis, increasing global warming on a micro-level. My hot flashes are still few and far between, but damn -I spent the first half of my life being cold all the time, and now I'm burning up. What the hell.
• My nails are kind of scarred and bumpy from a lifetime of using them for their evolutionary purpose. Stupid evolutionary purpose. 
• In spite of finally getting my insomnia mostly under control, I'm still awake during the night once or twice a week. I never had this trouble when I was young. On the bright side, I end up thinking of blog topics while I'm laying there, so I have that going for me.
• I have developed rosacea in my middle age. This makes my face a most unattractive shade of red most days, leading strangers to wonder if I'm lit all the time.

Things I Love About Getting Older, So Much So I Want To Marry Them and Have Their Babies

• The slow elimination of guilt. Now that I'm older, I find I'm slowly becoming less susceptible to manipulation by guilt. If I feel an obligation to my family and friends, it's because I want to, not because of some guilt-ridden manipulation surrounding what I "ought" to do. And because I'm eliminating guilt from my life, I'm finding those obligations are not absolute. If you act like a shitbird, it's unlikely I'm going to feel obligated to you, or allow you to make me feel guilty because of it.
• I no longer feel much of a need to apologize for who I am, where I come from, what I believe or how I arrived to this point. I can recognize that while I made some bad choices in my 20's, I've moved beyond them, and for now - it's all good.
• I can't see why I should waste my time on low quality people. 
• I've finally realized that while in certain relationships love is unconditional, acceptance of bad behavior isn't.
• There are many days where I wear no makeup. At all. And I'm okay with that.

I don't count this as wisdom, but it makes me wonder what I'll learn in the next twenty years.