Hello Hoddlers. You get a substitute teacher again today as Fitzie deals with more day job stuff.
I have a discussion question for you today that isn’t football or World Cup related. What is your personal internal age? I don’t mean what age are you now, but what age do you FEEL like you are, in your head?
About a year and a half ago I spent a weekend in Michigan on a Lake Michigan lakeside cottage with a bunch of male friends of mine — a “men’s weekend” with excellent food, lots of alcohol, and zero
plans. It was early spring and I had just finished my first full course of chemotherapy — everything looked good and I was at the time NED – “no evidence of disease.” One of my friends, a guy originally from Germany, broached this same topic with us one evening and had an interesting theory. According to him, your internal age is pegged to the last time you had a significant life-changing or -defining event happen to you.
For my friend, his internal age was 26, because that’s how old he was when he moved from Germany to the USA. And so he always feels 26, because that was a moment in his life that defined who he is. We then went around the circle and talked about our internal age and discussed my friend’s hypothesis.
I’ve thought about this conversation a lot over the past 18 months or so. It’s a very interesting way of looking at age and how we feel about our own ages as we get older. Most of my friends are in their 40s and 50s and at that gathering many of them said that their internal age was late 20s or early 30s.
Had you asked me pre-cancer diagnosis, I probably would’ve said “29” — the age I was when my eldest child was born. Since cancer, and chemo, I feel exactly my current age. Not to belabor the point, but cancer treatment is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And to my friend’s hypothesis, it was and continues to be a defining moment in my life. I feel every one of the circuits around the sun I’ve lived. I don’t mean this as a pejorative, but I’ve lived through some stuff that other people have not. I feel older, yes, but also wiser, more grounded. I’m no longer chasing youth, but content to live more in the moment. I look in the mirror now and I see someone very different than five years ag0 — greyer, yes. A few more lines around the eyes. Maybe a bit haggard, but also someone much more content with the idea of getting older than just a couple of years ago. Life is a gift. Cancer has taught me that much.
What about the rest of you? What’s your internal age? Do you subscribe to my friends’ theory of internal age and life-defining moments? Have your say in the comments.
Track of the Day: “Bad Man” (Fightmaster)
No links today, I’m writing this at 11 p.m. and I’m just tired. But do what y’all always do — put stuff in the comments and let’s talk about it.
