Act your age

I've been enlisting my tween and my teen to make social media videos with me. I don't make many, as they take way too much time, but I do like doing it. The downside, of course, is that I'm doing this with a tween and a teen. Meaning I'm forever being reminded of exactly how CRINGE I am.

Not only that, but my 44 is apparently ANCIENT. To be fair, when I turned 40, it felt much younger than I'd always thought it would. I actually had a moment when a character in a book I was reading was 40, and I thought 'oh, they're older', and then I realised they were exactly my age 😭

So I guess, maybe, in a way, I'm old. I did get my first Gmail address through invitation. Says enough, doesn't it? I'm also forever quoting old movies that nobody knows or recognises from the quote. Again, to be fair, those movies are often older than I am, and I know my tastes aren't always the same as those of the people around me, but still.

Here's a quote you probably don't recognise, but it's lingered in the back of my mind forever:

I love a chick in a trenchcoat. You never know what they've got under there, you know.

Here's where that came from:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1252370762513884

I don't blame you for not knowing that was a Johnny Bravo quote. It's the mystery, though! He may have meant something else, but for me, my imagination ran wild! A pistol? Smuggled watches? A hobby horse? A parchment from the library of Alexandria?

Though I was in my teens when I first saw that, the quote still lives in my brain now, in my midlife (I prefer that over middle age, for 2 reasons. 1: It sounds more like I'm in the middle of life, enjoying it, and 2: it doesn't make me feel like I should be polishing my chainmail). It encourages me to wonder: what else could be under the trenchcoat? I apply it to my mysteries when I'm writing: What else could be...? And if you've read any of my books, you probably know I like to go for the least obvious option.

So, in many other ways, I'm really not that old. The people I've met that I considered old were usually that because they felt rusted to me. Inflexible. As long as you've got a certain suppleness to your thinking, you'll never really be old. How do you stay supple? Do something unexpected!

Perhaps I should get myself a trenchcoat...