It is true I am getting fussier with age- I dont like public pools/ hot tubs/bathrooms, cheap hotels,poly sheets, black flies, canned food, packaged cookies or cakes, malls, backlit signs or the white noise of bad TV but I know it is a slippery slope. The fussier you get the more you catch “old”. And the older you get the more rigid and particular you become.
Lately I have been thinking about who I used to be v.s. who I am now. Some stuff I want to hold onto with a vengeance. Some stupidity is better left in my youth.
But I gotta fight the fuss.
In my 20’s when I was backpacking through Pampalona, Spain, during the running of the bulls, I slept on a park bench because the place was jammed with people. Everyone should be ‘homeless’ once.
I was once passionately kissing a boy in his room and when his mother came home I jumped out of the window two floors up to avoid her. I landed in a rosebush. It was both nimble and boyish of me. I like this.
I lived in Paris in a chambre de bonne (maid’s quarters) for 4 months. It was 8 floors up with no elevator. I was the only girl on the floor. I was the only white person on the floor (sorry for the “colour” reference but I do think it makes for a great postcard to send home to mom and dad). I was the only person from the first world on the floor. The only one who did not speak Arabic as a first language. We shared a bathroom. The bathroom was a hole in the floor (you’ve seen them in documentaries). I had three jobs, I was flat broke but I was in Paris. I still count it as one of 3 of the happiest times in my life.
I was born in Toronto, I have all my own teeth and they are fairly straight, I send thank you notes, my parents dont drop their g’s and have nice table manners.
But somehow adventures are the ultimate antidote to growing up predictably or too fussy.
I went to Morocco with another girl and got acquainted with a guy who happened to be a drug runner – how come bad people dont wear name tags that say “I am bad”?-who I overheard tryng to offer the two of us to the white slave market for a pretty penny. He did not know I spoke French. He did not know we could run fast.
I was robbed once when I was on a train in Spain in the middle of the night. I tore the place apart trying to find the robber- still on the train- while all the men around me were resolved to what had happened. I had him arrested. We were pulled into the policia in the train station and the officers beat him to a pulp in a small room. I shouted “stop” in every language I know through the whole thing. They returned my belongings to me and I got back on the train and continued on my trip.
I lived through a divorce.
My father has Dementia.
So when I go to Starbucks and order coffee – I love to say ” a large cup of coffee please”. The barristas look at me like I am boring or unsophisticated. Truth is you have to fight the fuss.
I have seen some of the world. And my coffee tastes great.
well said- truth is I love fine cotton sheets and if they are pressed I lose my mind
But that is not my regular life
clean cotton sheets – yes!!!Ironed?- only if I stay at my mom’s!
ditto grumbler xx
high compliment, jen!
Yes but it occurred to me that most is from many years ago. Need to push bigger envelope soon……..
Holy crap I love this post! I like to look back on my adventures all the time….and to think about ones to come!
Hey Cheryl- they are teens so they have heard these stories. Fingers crossed they dont do as many stupid things only the stupid things that serve them well and they escape unharmed. Wish we could give them a pill for that.
By the way the opening paragraph was an abbreviated list!
Enjoy your coffee 🙂 You’ve got great stories that your kids will really enjoy hearing about one day.
Btw, I didn’t think I was too fussy until I read your opening lines….those things irritate me too 😀 But I’m ok with that. THey ARE irritating!
oh grumpy for sure. Sometimes though it is the fussy people who make me grumpy!
Fussy or grumpy? I’m having a grumpy day. People bug me. They drive me crazy. I think I need something stronger than coffee. 😉
You’ve got me thinking, Nancy. I love that!
There’s a difference between being fussy and having standards. Non-poly sheets is just having standards! 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton never-been-slept-on sheets is fussy. (I hear it’s what Bono insists on when he stays in hotels.) Enjoy your comfy sheets and good old coffee!
Great post, lady. I like you. xox