I'm sure you weren't expecting to read something this early today, considering that I was out yesterday. Well neither was I, so in a way it feels like a third person should be the one to jump out from behind the curtain yelling "Surprise!", but alas there is no third person here so we're just going to have to settle without the "Surprise!" -part. So let's talk binge-drinking and ageing.
So yeah, I was surprised too. Though to be fair, I didn't drink that much yesterday. Though to be honest, I've gotten extremely hungover from drinking a measly 3 — normal sized — beers. Apparently there's an expression for that called "Larry Lightweight". Now according to the almighty Google-God, that refers to someone who is easily intoxicated by alcohol or drugs. Now, I don't fit that description exactly as I fairly okay at handling the alcohol consumption -part, it's the side effects -part that I have issues with. Translation, I get hungover, easily and massively.
So imagine my — and my wife's — surprise, when I wasn't hungover at all this morning. And that's really awesome — and lucky — but that doesn't mean I got away unscathed. Because apparently I have still gotten older — as we all do — and should therefore suffer the consequences of age combined with intoxication. Translation: I could only move my head in one direction because my neck was so stiff.
When you think about it — even tough it makes sense — it's really unfair that as you get older you suffer more from things, things that your 20-year old self could have done twice in a row and brushed off like it was nothing. Man do I loath 20-year old me, that guy was a total douchebag, thinking he knew a lot more than he did and didn't even have the decency to appreciate that he could binge-drink for an entire weekend and still get up in the morning. Sure, he suffered the consequences too, but "slightly more tired" vs. "Shoot me, shoot me now, just put me out of my god damn misery! Why God why?! What have I done to deserve this?" is really not much of a comparison. So 20-year old me can fuck off, that guy didn't know suffering they way I know suffering.
Ironically enough — obviously — is that 40-year old me is probably already looking back at 28-year old me thinking "What a self-obsessed asshole! Who does he think he is? 'Me, me, me, look at how I'm suffering' my arse. He doesn't know suffering the way I know suffering."
You see where I'm going with this.
And so the perpetual circle of self-reflection and growth continues, where I today think I knew nothing 8 years ago just as surely will I think back to now — 12 years from now — and come to the conclusion that I knew nothing back then… now… either.
So, to my 40-year old self I have this to say: "Guess who has two thumbs, got drunk yesterday and still wasn't hungover today? This guy! And you know what? I'm enjoying it, a lot."
