Livin’ That Curmudgeon Lifestyle, Baby!

I have two opposing forces in my head.  I realized there was a conflict when I was around 24 years old or so.  I was married with two kids and I owned a house.  Life started pretty quickly.  I was also a dreamer with a yearning to be a kid as long as I could.  I at least wanted to identify with my kids as long as I could, and I knew the world of adults didn’t interest me.  So, my life was in the adult world, but my mind was still filled with ideas and a need to goof around. 

Then came the grumpiness.  I believe that it began as a resistance to the onslaught of responsibility I took on at such an early age.  I was doing the best I could as a husband and father, cobbling together meager paychecks and going to school for a degree that would eventually lead to a minor bump in pay.  I had a mortgage and a yard and cars to keep up.  It was a lot, but I did it.  However, fatigue set in and I knew I didn’t want any extraneous taxes on my already depleted energy.

And that took the form of a young curmudgeon.  I didn’t want strangers in my house.  I needed to connect with everyone my kids knew, at least at a base level or I felt uncomfortable around them. My innate need to host people nagged at me.  I began to withdraw from extraneous social gatherings and holiday celebrations.  I was never really invited to parties, but occasionally I would get an invite to hang out with co-workers, or a friend of a friend was having a thing and I almost always declined. 

I realized I was an introvert that needed friends.  I just needed them to be around me.  Going out to find them in the world was too much.  Extroverts are energized by journeys into the world.  Introverts are sucked dry every time.

I began to resent Halloween.  I don’t hate Halloween, but Halloween is a social holiday, outside of trick-or-treating with your kids. Socializing with adults on Halloween is a different animal. Adults want parties, and curmudgeons don’t like parties that much. I don’t do New Year’s Eve or St. Patrick’s Day.  They are meaningless to me.

How does my wife feel about it?  Let me put it this way.  Compared to my wife, in the arena of socialization, I am Barack Obama.  The pope.  Tom Hanks.  I am like, super-duper more social. The major difference between us is that all this stuff bothers me.

Then, I hit my forties.  Now we’re talking. The magical thing that happens when you are in your forties is that you stop thinking so much about what you were, and what you want to be.  It’s all about what you are.  The good, the bad, the ugly. My kids are grown and I’m losing my hair.  I’ve been married for 3,000 years and we haven’t murdered each other.  We’ve managed to hold on to our home despite the economy trying to destroy us at every turn. 

Now, I’m a curmudgeon and I don’t give a shit.

I have all my opinions and I don’t care who knows.  I’m a liberal.  Republicans are a sad joke.  Jerry Seinfeld is overrated.  All medical expenses should be free.  I don’t want anything bad to happen to the citizens of oh, let’s say, Mozambique, but I don’t really give a shit enough to think about it.  I feel deeply for the people of the world like when I was a kid, but I also know there are plenty of assholes that don’t deserve that concern.  I like my nerd stuff and I like football.  I know grown men risk brain damage every day to play, but it’s completely voluntary so it doesn’t bother me.  I respect vegetarians, but I am not one.  I like pork better than beef. I think Florida sucks.  I have friends and family there, but I really don’t like it at all. The Pacific Northwest is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. If I’m honest with myself, I probably won’t get to see many other places in my life.  I’m a comedy nerd.  Kevin Hart isn’t that funny.  I don’t know what fun is.  I have overthought every aspect of life that the concept is completely foreign.  Bagels ain’t shit.

I’ve never felt so free in my closed-off life.  I haven’t really changed.  I just don’t beat myself up about it.

It’s a curmudgeonly life, to be sure, but I don’t believe my mind is closed.  I am open to the world.  I don’t sweat it if nothing walks through the door. If it does, it does.  If something comes along that would drag me out of my routine and introduce a brand-new world to me, I would go.  I just have to let go of the pain of not finding it.  It was too much to bear that I couldn’t find new and exciting adventures out there.  I blamed myself for everything.  Now, I just chalk it up to experience and sip from my coffee mug. 

That’s the curmudgeon way.