Back On The Chain Gang…

Almost through week #1 at work. The training week. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those words resemble training wreck.

It’s a fun job with the train commute to the train station where I get out and follow the other condemned men to the cubicle farms. If I didn’t get to walk through one of the most interesting parts of the city (including a huge fresh food market) everyday I can see how people would end up looking like the walking dead.

The main train station is very close to the central business district so many of the commuters are going into sky-scraping bank and finance towers. I power pace in my jean jacket, back pack and t-shirts, passing on the left or right, literally running circles around the masses. It’s just not in me to conform. Or act my age.

I turned 49 yesterday. Not 50. 49. Three heterosexual office mates (the office is mixed, after all it is a television design show) all under 35 years old were shocked. Maybe I look older? Don’t judge by the heavily photoshopped picture up above, the one where I’m sans makeup, in the third day of a raging flu but had a fluky good hair day. That picture is a lie. Unless you think I look younger than 49.

I give full credit to fear. Fear comes from having a younger husband, a death-defying eight year old and a huge mortgage. Fear of dying keeps you working at being young, active, vital. It can also age you so you have to be careful of that precarious balance. I think at some point soon I’m going to have to dress my age, probably even act my age. But it’s just not in me to conform.

That will be my motto.

Until I turn 50.