I have saggy knee caps. It’s true. I saw them this morning. They almost fold over the knees, like an elephant’s trunk. I’d like them to stop sagging. I think if they moved up a couple inches—back to where they belong—it may ease up on the bathroom scale a little, too.

I’m not complaining. Truth be told, I’m extremely lucky. While my knees suck, my face is aging well… really well. I don’t have any wrinkles. Not a one. It has nothing to do with the coconut oil baths I suffocate my pores in or the resveratrol in my cabernet. It is pure genetics – Scottish-Irish genes. Actually, I may have just made that part up. Regardless, my face is blessed, and with my landing strip of a forehead, I better not complain.

Karma is real, and she is, in fact, a bitch.

Today, I’m forty-two. Thirty twelve. A Mariano Rivera Jersey. Twice the drinking age. Eight short of fifty. Eight. Short. Of. Fifty.

Twice the drinking age. Just like that. Legal, twice. I swear it was just last weekend that we stole Christine’s peach schnapps for a Saturday afternoon buzz before finals. The years before I turned 21 seemed like five eternities – and also like they were yesterday. Every birthday, back then, just another reminder of how long it would be before I could actually walk into a store and legally buy it… all .0005 percent alcohol that was probably actually inside a Boone’s bottle.

And here I am, 21 twice. The second 21 years, a blur in time. Did I just steal that from someone? Oops. Sorry.

I’m still discovering myself… making lots of mistakes, fixing others, laughing all the time. Mostly at my husband, but that’s his own fault – he does victim well.

Here is what I can’t figure out… I continuously set myself up for failure—self-sabotage—knowing, KNOWING, that I’m making a mistake, knowing the end result is going to be bad for me. Then, with everything I have, I plow forward like it’s the best idea, anyone, ever, in the world, ever had. Or, I ignore it, like it will just go away, and that somehow it will all work out. And, plot twist, it always backfires. So, what do I do? Well, of course, I do it again. But better each time. Look, kids. Big Ben! Yes. I’ve used that one before.

I’m a smart person… just ask my mom.

So, why do I keep inflicting pain on myself…ahhh, something to do, I guess. It drives my husband crazy. He is the most responsible, level-headed person I have ever met in my life (sober, of course). He can’t for the life of him, figure out what makes me tick and why I continue to sabotage my life…not doing the things that I love to do and occasionally making myself sick on lattes. But then, I guess if he figured that out, and I figured that out, he’d be bored and I wouldn’t have anything to write about (yikes, preposition).

 

Originally posted December 10, 2014.