Rut

As I approach middle-age, I realize I've gotten into a rut. So many things wrong with that sentence. First, middle-age. What the hell is that? I don't feel middle-aged. When did old hit me? When did all this added age become a part of me? I still see the face of a 12-year old when I look in my mirrors - my magic, magic mirrors. Second, rut. Life use to be an adventure. Things were always happening to me, not all good, but things would happen so often I would always be asking myself, "Why do these things always happen to me?"

My friend called me the other day and was complaining about life always being... the same. I laughed out loud. He's not middle-aged yet, but he can see it coming around the bend. I've been living it for quite sometime. It weirdly hits me the most every week as I take the same sheets off the same bed and throw them in the same washing machine and wash them with the same detergent and the same fabric softener. "Didn't I just do this?" I think to myself. How did my life become a series of events that culminate in a weekly sheet washing event?

I now totally understand why people go through a mid-life crisis. I thought it was silly when I was young, when I was traveling, exploring, becoming me. I didn't understand what 13 years of living in the exact same place, doing the exact same thing could do to a person. I mean, thank god I didn't know what it meant, that would be a horrible way to spend your youth, worrying about being old! But now that I know, I'm not sure what to do with the information.

Buy different sheets? Really, doesn't constitute a change.

Buy a new car? It's just a car.

Burn down your house, move to Mexico and learn to speak Spanish? Too improbable and there's no reason to destroy a perfectly good house.

I have no idea what to do now; how to see the world with new eyes when I know almost exactly what is going to happen tomorrow. And I know with unwavering certainty that I am going to wash those same sheets with the same detergent and the same fabric softener in less than a week.