Dude, I'm Forty-Seven

0:08 Welcome to my weekly Panic Attack. I'm your host, Remy Brooks. I've been a licensed psychotherapist for over twenty years and run a thriving private practice. I'm also diagnosed s BI polar an OCD. Often the two do not mix well, which tends to throw my life into complete chaos. So as I do some spiraling, my best friend Liz Win will do her best to ground me a bit. During this podcast, we'll be talking about the horror and the humor of the anxieties of daily life, the things we do that are embarrassing, funny, but yet very human. Let's get started. So today we're talking about how time is just flying by. I mean, my kid, he just turned eighteen, like an actual adult. I'm not ready for this, and it's like I didn't even see it coming. I didn't prepare for this somehow, how did I miss this? But before we get started on that, here's a well agile moment from Lizz's life. You know what's really annoying? So many things, But what are you talking about? When you hold the door for people and they walk through and don't say thank you?

1:40 I know, do you then say very loudly so they can hear you, no worries. It was my pleasure to hold the door for you. No reman. You never know what kind of day a person is having, so to avoid confrontation stright, no remedy ever know what kind of day people are having. So I just avoid confrontation with strangers, even when you're on the way out holding the door and they don't say thank you, then you don't say you are so welcome. I was just standing here hoping for the opportunity to hold the door open for a stranger, and look at that.

2:23 My witch came true. No I don't And this has been a well adjusted moment from Lizz's life. Well, my baby has turned into a man, and it has totally caught me off guard. It floors me because literally, I because you know me, and I'm remembering and linking things to events. I remember his brist was right after the Easter. I go away for Easter with my family, and I came back from east to go to his brust, which was on the Monday after Easter, and I was just thinking, I'm like, oh my god, that was eighteen years ago, and yet it feels like yesterday. And that's the thing. It's like oh god, If I close my eyes, I remember taking my baby to daycare every morning, you know, like I remember him running in to see his best friends.

3:25 I remember standing at the bus stop on his first day of kindergarten and then hopping into my car and following the bus and watching him walk into the school building to make sure that he was okay. You know, I remember his bar mitzvah. Oh my god, it seems like, you know, it was just And then when his voice turned from this little boy's voice into a deep man's voice another first time I heard, I'm like, what happened there? What happened there? And then, you know, his first day of high school. And now somehow my baby is eighteen and a full fledged adult who is getting ready to graduate high school and getting ready for college.

4:25 And I swear he was just playing with his friends in daycare. And now he has been dating the same girl for over two years, and he has a job, and he's driving all over the place. And I don't get it, Like I don't understand where all this time went, And I just how did this happen? And I think, more importantly than that, what how am I old enough to have a kid who's an adult. I mean, I think that is the real question here. How am I old enough to have a kid who's an adult? I mean, yes, this is the year that I turn fifty. And it's interesting because I see people that like I grew up with and I have to say, they look fifty.

5:26 They have definitely aged. And I'm not saying that they'll look bad, it's just that they look older. Well, you know, the funny thing is I was just watching The All in the Family last week and Edith is the same age as we are, like in our late forties when she started that show, and I thought, my god, has what a forty eight to fifty year old has changed since you know, I was born in the nineteen seventies. Yes, yes, absolutely still some of them that are our age are like, oh you're you're you're pushing ten years older than what you really are. I don't really do the whole Facebook thing, but like, I have seen pictures of the people that I grew up with, and you know, and they look good, they look good, but they definitely look older.

6:23 And the thing is is that I don't. You don't look older, you don't feel older. I both, I don't look older, and I don't feel older, and I swear I am not being narcissistic. I don't look anywhere close to fifty. And that is not just me saying that, like strangers who have no skin in the game have said that to me. I recently, somewhat recently, within the last couple of months, I had a networking lunch and during a lunch, age came up and so I said, I said, yeah, well, I'm turning fifty this year, and they both thought I was lying, and there was no reason for them to say that. So this is not just like a me thing, like I do not look like I am even close to fifty. I have to say, you never realize until you become these ages that when that comes up, because I had that happened about a year ago when we were talking and they thought that I was in my late thirties early forties, and I it was.

7:30 So it was a year ago, and I'm like, turning forty eight next week, and oh, your card just went out today in the mail, just so you know, like you'll keep an eye on it, because the way things have been going in the mail, I may get it, you know, Mother's Day, fourth of Delay right before the pandemic, I stopped at wah wah Okay coffee and for cigarettes, and I don't I don't know what was going on that day. There was like one line open, and that one line it stretched all the way back to the like the end of the store. I don't know. I have no idea why they didn't open up the second line. I was so annoyed by the time I reached the cashier, I put down my coffee, I asked for my cart and his cigarettes, and the guy behind the counter asked to see my ID right for the pandemic. Forty seven years old, so okay, kind of cute, except unfortunately I had only brought in my debit card with me, So I said to him, I assure you I am most certainly older than twenty one. You can you can sell me the cigarettes. It really, it's okay. Only he said to me, no, I really need to see your ID. So this went from like I'm a cute ha ha ha,

9:01 that's funny, to like, not cute at all. But I'm like, dude, I'm forty seven. I have a kid who's probably older than you, Like, my mortgage is older than you. Believe me, you can sell me the fucking cigarettes. And he's stuck to it. He's like, I'm sorry, I need to see your ID, manja. So for as long as this line is, I'm now the one who's holding it up. This very sweet man behind me says, like, think of it this way.

9:45 How often are you mistaken for being twenty one? It's really actually a compliment, totally playing into my vanity. I know he's playing into my vanity. It doesn't matter. He's playing into my vanity. He was a very smart man and it worked. I'll be back with my ID. Sorry, walk out of the store, get the ID with ID in hand. I wait in this incredibly one still only one line open, right, finally make it to the front of this line. I tick off my sunglasses. I slam down my ID and I say, here's my ID forty seven, just like I told you my carton of cigarettes. Please. And he looked at me, not the ID, and he says, oh, sorry, ma'am, I'll get that for you. Now. You went to mam and you came that age back. Sorry, man, like even ma'am today, I'm like, I'm not ady, please don't mam me. Uh. He was

11:18 just like parting me. So I'm know what, like, how is he not looking at the ID? That he didn't look at it? That he just forced me to get He forced me out of the store to get the ID and wait in this exceptionally long line, Like the fuck what is happening? He wrung me up without looking at the ID. He made me get so I say, um, what aren't you looking? And then ah, it's me with my sunglasses on. I looked young. Oh with them off, I must have looked what Yeah, and you were big sunglasses. So not that you have wrinkles, but big sunglasses cover a myriad of issues.

12:31 Peak black sunglasses. We're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back. So clearly this cashier is calling me old les, poor boys, you know, the poor boys. Following is first thing he's thinking. I'm just doing my job, job, I am throwing. Okay, another Wala experience.

13:22 But throughout the pandemic, I stopped going to like all unnecessary places, and that includes Wahwa. So throughout the last two years, I think I had gone to Wawa all of like two times. And I used to go there every single day for a cup of coffee and maybe twice a day, but over the last two years, one of those dinormous bats of coffee thing going forty some ounces, like yeah, two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago, two three, I don't know. Um. I had to take my little one over to the dentist, and our way home from the dentist we literally pass my wah Wah and as I'm approaching, I'm trying to decide Wawa no wah Wa wa Wa no wah wah. And I needed to decide quickly because if I'm going to Wahwa, I need to be in the left lane. And I go to the left. I'm going to go to wah Wah. I have not had the mocha alert in like again, I've had it twice in two years. So I'm gonna go to Wahwa. So I go and I fill up my coffee, and since I was there, I figured I might as well get a carton of cigarettes. So the woman behind

14:54 the counter asked my ID. Now I'm nine years old, okay, and I laugh outright. Only this time I take it as a compliment because I do have my ID on me. But I ask her for real, like I say, I say to her like seriously, I turn fifty this year and she says, no, you don't, and I say I do, I really really do. And she says, you definitely don't look it.

15:37 Well, that is very nice of you, but I think we can both admit that I also don't look anywhere close to twenty one. So she explains to me anyone questionable they had id. So I'm confused because I am not even questionably close to twenty one. So what their thing is is questionable is considered if you look thirty or younger, they need to ide you. And I'm like, so you think I look thirty or younger? And she said I do, and I said it's said. Okay, you must always remember this moment. This is a very special moment in time. Your mother is turning fifty this year, and I was carted. And he says, I don't know what any of that means. Looking at your life, you're out of your mind, and this is a big it's a big moment for me.

16:55 Okay, it's a big moment. So I to try to explain this to him and he cuts me off and says, can I just say I really don't care? Oh no, no, he won't care. Until you know, in another thirty or forty years when he gets parted or someone thinks that he's ten or fifteen years younger. We all get that way when I when I told my nieces and nephews, take your naps now, because when you've become an adult, you can't do it, and none of them is to take their naps. And now I talk to like my oldest niece and I'm like, I told you to take your naps. She's like, yeah, I wish I had done that. I'm like, say, I arrange my clients around my nap schedule. I take a nap every single day.

17:41 It is as important for me to nap as it is to see clients and make money. Just saying okay, I haven't taken a nap in years, So I don't know. I feel very sorry for you because I look forward to my knaps every single day. So I kind of just want to go back for a minute, because I don't I really don't know how I could be old enough to have a child who's an adult. And by the way, you know how on kids birthdays it's their day, like they get present, they get cake, they are celebrated. Everyone claps and sings happy birthday to them. I think all mommies are going to understand what I'm about to say. As I'm smiling and clapping and happy for my kids, what I'm really thinking is why aren't they clapping for me? All my kids did was live, Yes you want that. Yeah, I'm the one who kept them alive. It was all me, all me, and it's a fucking hard ass job. So all of you people turn around and clap for me.

19:18 My kid made it to adulthood because I'm the one who got him there. I am fucking amazing, like maybe even perhaps the best mother in the world. And yes, I know many many other mothers have done this before me, and many many will do this after me, and I get that. But here's the thing. We are oh amazing, like every single one of us. We are incredible human beings. I am be on impressed with myself and I still have like one way to go and it's fucking exhausting and I don't know how I do it. So for all the mommies out there who have reached the milestone of keeping your child alive and even thriving to adulthood, good for you. Like major paddle in the back, like forget about singing for your kid and clapping for your kid, pet yourself on the back, and like, Okay, well, my little boy is now a man, and I mean like a man who's afraid to kill spiders, but a man all the same. And I just want to take a moment because I am

20:53 so unbelievably proud of who he has has become. He has achieved something that most adults in life haven't achieved. This kid, oh god, this kid adult has managed to create balance in his life, which I think in general, most people can't do. He wow the school and comes home and does his homework, and he works like five days a week, and he has managed to save so much money. And he hangs out with his guy friends, and he makes a point of hanging out with his girlfriend, and he still records music. Like he has created balance in his life. And I'm so proud of him, and so like he's becoming this unbelievable, this wonderful, incredible man person. And so as life continues to change, right, and I'm not really sure now as he's an adult, you know what this

22:25 new dynamic is going to be like and how the roles in this household and outside of this household, and how everything is going to change. I think one thing within this conversation has brought me some comfortlet and what is that that? At least I can always count the wawas it's the constant. I can always go to Wah Wah for their moocha alert coffee and make it through your day and make it through the day. That is, everything else is changing so fucking rapidly, I can always go to blah wah God. Oh, So that is that time keeps flying by, but we remain by bayh bay my bay. You can reach us at Voyage Media at Twitter, Instagram, and on Facebook, and you can reach out directly to me at Panicked Remy on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.