Full disclosure: I am an overthinker. And very likely too hard on myself. I confess this today after coming to the conclusion that writing is actually hard. I had every intention yesterday of publishing a truly epic post, only to find myself completing approximately 70% of a moderately humorous and mostly lame essay.

I jazzed up one other post that I had in my draft folder as well, but it didn’t meet my standards of publishability. Yes, I may have just made up a new word. 

Of course, I just had to google the word publishability and of course it is a legit word. No matter.  I have also come to the conclusion this week that the most beneficial thing I can do to harness whatever creative writing abilities I possess, is something. As in, don’t just plop your arse down in front of the computer and force yourself to write something, anything, just so you can give yourself a high five that you continued your blog for yet another day. As it turns out, writing doesn’t work that way.

So I actually did some stuff this morning. Not a lot of stuff, mind you. But stuff, nonetheless.

I checked off one of my to-do list items. I wrote a check and filled out a form to claim my new, free duffel bag from AARP. Which means I am now officially a member of the Advanced Age Restless Party. Take that, those of you under 50! Ha!

All I had to do was put a stamp on it and then send it on it’s merry way. I recalled recently locating a book of stamps I purchased at the post office in one of the zippered pouches of my trusty black Baggallini purse. I also recall thinking to myself let’s put those here where they will be handy when I need them. 

The only problem is the “here” is nowhere to be found. And of course since I’m thisclose to being a member of  the exclusive AARP club, I cannot recall for the life of me where precisely that “here” is. I’ve searched high and low-in other purses, in my small filing cabinet next to the computer desk. No stamps to be found. Not. A. One.

Those darn stamps are bound to turn up somewhere at some point in time, right? The most likely scenario, however, is that the moment I arrive home from purchasing a new book of stamps they will magically appear. Just like that belt I forgot I bought after buying the exact same one at Target last week.

So after this kerfuffle, I decided to do something else. Something challenging but entirely irrelevant and self-serving. Something to divert my attention from the reality that I have indeed lodged myself firmly into AARP land. As I said in a very recent post, one of my life goals is to be able to successfully sing all the lyrics to R.E.M.’s “It’s The End Of The World” song. I found the lyrics on Google Play, then put this song on play on my tablet.

All I can say is that I was all kinds of happy when I got to the main chorus of “It’s the end of the world as we know it” (times 3) then “and I feel fine”. The rest of the lyrics were akin to rapidly repeating an old timey tongue twister like “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers”. But nonetheless it was highly amusing.

I guess the lesson here for me, today, despite my geriatric tendencies, though one could also conclude the lesson is that I have entirely too much time on my hands, is that I’m still young at heart. Like a 14 year old geeking out at those “amazing” music videos on MTV trapped in an occasionally audibly creaking, slightly overweight, stretch-marked, 50 year old body. And that’s okay with me, because acceptance leads to freedom.