Reflection, September 2025

I'm tired.

Aging is different for everyone, I think. Some people seem to blossom into age; Like crocus buds popping through the newly-thawed dirt in spring, whatever their life had begat up until some indeterminate point in their fourties or fifties shattered under the shoots of life that had been germinating 'neath the soil. Others stumble into it like a shadow in flickering candleight, not quite as sharp as you'd like, not quite as solid as you've been. A guttering, somewhat fuzzy, somewhat diminished ghost on the wall.

For me? I don't know. I'm not sure what it is to age, really. This isn't to say that I don't experience the ravages of time, or that I don't suffer the second-order effect of age. I'm slower to anger, but only just so. I'm somewhat more cautious in my words, and self-talk. I try to be more considerate. I smile more freely, but less genuinely. I think that, in and of itself, is one of the biggest hallmarks of age. It's getting past the Holden Caulfieldness of your 20s and learning why people are phonies, because at some point you're in a 30-year mortgage and your neighbors aren't transient any more. You learn what you can push way the fuck down and what you need to wear on your sleeve.

But mostly, I think, aging is about being tired all the goddamn time.

Being tired has little to do with sleep, I've found. That's exhaustion. Your body giving out because you're not feeding it enough delicious sleep tokens and being tired are truly distinct experiences. I'm not really exhausted that often these days -- I suppose that could be because I have a very nice mattress or because I have a pretty charmed life, all things considered -- but I am, often, tired. I'm tired for reasons I don't care to print on the internet, but I think they're understandable. Children. Aging, and dying, parents. Working for a living. The state of the world. There's a million things to be tired about.

There was a time where I felt like I might get less tired if I did new things, or if I slept differently, or if I used different supplements or drank smoothies or ate kale or whatever. It really hasn't helped, I'm sad to report. Optimistically, I can suggest that the brain drugs do help, but I also think that maybe I'm just too tired to really give a shit about the side effects any more.