What do you know at 40? – 10/29/2023 – The Worst of the Week

Raquel, 29 years old, writes to me asking what I know today, at almost 45, that I didn’t know at 30.

First of all, I need to say that I miss something that I did masterfully at 30 that I completely unlearned: sleeping. I don’t have any problems with falling asleep. I can pull over and sleep any time of the day. The difficulty is not waking up several times during the night.

Everything wakes me up: the pain in my neck, the pain in my lower back, a full bladder (I miss having stronger muscles), dreams that shake me, fear of missing time for Rita’s school, restlessness due to some noise coming from my room. My daughter, I miss you, I miss some people unbearably, I miss the air of so much longing, the lack of money, my immense capacity to spend all my money and so on.

But today I understand, for example, that I will never overcome childhood and adolescence. At 30 we are certain that we will reach a plateau of adulthood. A kind of date when you wake up much less imbecile and all your naivety and all your wonder and all your ability to utter the worst phrases of the century are left behind, like a long neon stain hidden in the tail of your sacred mantle of perfection.

Today I know that I can be 65 years old and 12 years old on the same day. That being 19 years old is a misfortune that appears every half hour. And that won’t change for at least the next 20 years. I’m almost always doing something without the slightest idea of ​​how to do it and with that desperate look of a small child who was forgotten at school.

Being a totally forced and deeply incapable super adult makes my daughter completely obsessed with love for me, but it’s also what makes her have more respect for her father’s bravery. And it’s good that she has both of us.

I also had an ideal that, reading, studying, getting so many “PDFs” of social science classes on the internet, becoming more and more a left-wing woman, an infinite light of simplicity, humility and modesty would invade me. And I would finally break with my undisguised adoration for luxury and improve my immense difficulty in not being an intolerable freak when traveling.

I believed in those exercises involving exposure to fear/difficulty, taught by some cognitive behavioral therapy. I only got worse. I’m the kind of indigestible guy who, when invited to a friend’s little mountain house, asks how long it’s been since the place has benefited from the sunny wind and killed dust mites from excessively open windows, the blankets fresh from the laundry and the bathrooms. very clean. If I’m going to share a toilet with anyone other than my partner, I just won’t. If a whole class is going to want to dictate my schedules and schedules, I just won’t. If it’s New Year or Carnival, I won’t go anyway.

In exelent places (a lifetime of participating in literary fairs in Brazil) I suffer deeply with those uncontrolled sinks that wet the entire bench, with the rubberized and unclean shower feet, that color of contempt for paying feet. And they still hang this disgrace together with towels. And the face towel that is the same as the mat? Mattresses of the worst kind, extra blankets with a musty smell, that barbecue man’s backyard flooring placed inside the rooms, artificial cheddar flavored snacks in the bar.

Ah, my friends, so many people are suffering in the world, there is so much war going on, but I continue to be this allergic little white shit with a help face every time I need to get out of my bubble of comfort and aristocratic parody. And I will no longer cure myself of not being a good person and easy to live with and good vibes It’s cool, peaceful and light and how wonderful to be close to me.

I also always believed that at some point I would lift this flabby little body off my desk and give me a lady ass. I always thought about the ass lady. One day, I’ll have that ass that attracts attention on a beach. Such a young ass is an ass lady. Never. That’s for sure. I abandoned my ass a long time ago. She’s soft, droopy and lipodystrophic but I like everything I do sitting and lying down too much to, at this point in my life, decide that I’m going to squat for two hours a day, stretching my knees to make some clumsy male sigh for my gluteus maximus. I do a minimum of daily gymnastics for the sake of my health and the future, to avoid worsening the pain and to avoid becoming a very stunted elderly woman.

A few years ago, I stopped thinking that cathartic and honest fights with my mother would solve our connection obstacles. I often buy white flowers and pray to female deities to protect our possible relationship. And may all my love and all my gratitude for her existence reach my mother’s heart. I see her love, I see everything that was done for me. I never gave up on my mother, I just learned, with a lot of pain (a lot) how much we can hurt and destroy ourselves if intimacy goes beyond the safe limits of an almost cold, but daily interaction. I’m here 24 hours a day, even though I’ve been gone for a while.

I also gave up on finding a giant, definitive resolution that would bring me much joy or well-being. Coming from therapy or maturity or motherhood. I’m always a little sad, a little melancholic, a little confused, in pain, with a cold. Always anxious, without belonging to anything, ending her days owing affection, ideas and payments.

I gave up on changing, but I also gave up on accepting that it will be like this and not doing anything to change. So, at the same time that I embraced a certain condition of cozy restlessness and mental breakdown, every day I wake up wanting to find a giant and definitive resolution that brings me a lot of joy or well-being. Because it’s confusing and complex and repetitive to be 44, much like being 30 (or even 20).

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