 There is nothing under my Christmas tree this year.
That’s sounds melodramatic, doesn’t it? Yes, I’m verklempt, but it’s not because I’ve fallen on hard times or anything like that. I have a great life, a successful business, and I can afford to share a bit of my wealth. The problem is, there is nothing for me to buy for the first time in 20 years. See, the adults in my family suck at gift exchange. Christmas consists of me shoving gift certificates or cash in clever cards for my parents and brother. They almost always do the same for me. I don’t know if it’s because we’re lazy or not very creative, but we are collectively OK with that. There is no doubt we love each other, and we’re not concerned about expressing that love through material things. We show it in other ways throughout the year.
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 What do Prince, Leonard Nimoy and long-overdue library fees have in common?
Well, nothing to most people. To me, though, they all represent threads in the fabric of my adolescence. Let me explain. I had the privilege of seeing His Purple Highness at the Louisville Palace Saturday. As you have no doubt seen, heard and read all over social media, he put on one HELL of a show. I haven’t been that energized or excited by a concert since, well… ever. I actually had butterflies in my stomach and tears in my eyes the entire time the funkiest man in music was on stage. His band was phenomenal, and his voice sounds exactly the same (if not better) than it did 30 years ago. Dude can GET DOWN.  I’ve lived in Louisville all my life. I don’t count the two years I spent in undergraduate school at the University of Kentucky because I came home every weekend. I’ve traveled a bit, but Looavull has always been my base.
When I was a kid, I would often complain about my hometown, whining that there was nothing to do here (and then I went to school in Lexington, oy). Oh, how I could not wait to get the hell out. Sadly, I wasn’t quite ambitious enough to make that happen in my early 20s, and by 22, I was pregnant. There was no question about where I would raise my child — amongst family, friends and familiar surroundings. I was stuck, er, committed to a life here. And thank God. Today, I love this ol’ city, schizophrenic weather and all. There is a small chance, now that my son is grown, I’ll move to Florida or Hawaii someday — I wrote last week about my near-obsessive affection for the beach. The ocean is the only thing Loueyville is missing, in my humble estimation. (Update: flights are booked, and my October trip is officially on!)  Bwock bwock bwock-ock!
I admit it. I can be a big chicken. Now, I don’t think I have any true phobias. Nothing paralyzes me from participating in day-to-day activities. I don’t like spiders, but if one of those little sons of bitches shows up in my house, I have no problem grabbing a wad of Kleenex and smooshing the sucker. I experience dizziness that borders on vertigo at the top of a skyscraper, but that didn’t stop me from visiting the observation decks of the John Hancock Center and the Sears Tower (renamed Willis Tower in 2009) in Chicago with my son while on vacation there 10 years ago. Air travel makes me nauseous, but I just take a happy pill and get on the plane anyway. And I’ve had an irrational fear of dying in a car crash ever since my parents were involved in a drunk driving accident in the late 1970s, but I still get in my car every damn day. And sure, I experience many common, human fears — fear of failure, fear of disappointing others, fear of not being enough, financial fear, etc. — but I push through them. What’s that saying about courage? Being scared shitless and getting the job done anyway? Yeah, that.  I have discovered that, since I celebrated the milestone almost two years ago, 40 truly is the magic age when your body starts waging a Sandinista-style rebellion.
Oblivious to the damage you’re doing to yourself in your youth and all the time-tested literature on the natural effects of aging, you dismiss the warnings of your parents and middle-aged friends, thinking, “I’ll be fine until WAY into my 50s.” And then 40 sneaks up on you like a kitten under the covers at 3 a.m. Forty has TEETH, man. Your skin suddenly says nuh-uh to collagen production and yes to saggy jowls and eye wrinkles. Your stomach starts screaming “Hell to the no!” when you dare to eat anything greasy or (burp) spicy. And your metabolism says, “Fuck you, that tiny piece of carrot cake WILL go straight to your ass if you don’t get up off of it right this minute and kick the shit out of those calories at the gym.” |
About Amy HiggsA former newspaper columnist, Amy takes her random, slice-of-life stories to the web. After 12 years, she's still just saying. Archives
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