Feeling My Age

I'm not that old. But I'm starting to feel like I'm not a spring chicken anymore. Lately I'm noticing that after just one night of going out I'm wiped, and don't want to go out for the rest of the week. Back in college I could go out hard for three solid nights and still get through the week fine. Now, however, I'm finding that if I go out on Friday night, I just want to take it easy on Saturday.

It could have to do with my work schedule, or the fact that I get woken up very early, even on the weekends. It's always necessary to sleep off the night before, but here I get woken up too early and can't get back to sleep, which defeats the purpose of a weekend morning. But my whole body just feels tired, and I feel perfectly happy just watching a movie and relaxing.

I've always thought it was kind of lame to see older people (40s and 50s) out at a disco because they just don't fit in with the rest of the demographic there. Aside from maybe once in a blue moon, when I get older I think I'd be fine with dinner parties and movies. I had my time partying it up, and it was great, but if you did it right the first time, you don't need to do it again. And I think I'm ready to move on.

Some friends from my program were visiting Cuenca this week and on Friday night we went over to Lauren's house for dinner and some wine before heading out. Her host sister just left for Mexico for a month, so now she's all alone. We had a good time and met up with some other friends at a bar on Calle Larga. Even though I only got one extremely strong Black Russian and a beer, I was doing good for the night. After a shawarma we called it a night and went home by 1:30 a.m.

And for the rest of Saturday I was exhausted and just wanted to lay in bed watching movies. But I'd told Lauren I would go with her class to do karaoke around 4 p.m. Just as I'd left the house a great thunderstorm passed through Cuenca, and I got soaked on the way, even though I had an umbrella. The wind was so strong that the rain was just blowing under the cover of the umbrella. We went to a karaoke bar by the river and were led into a private room to sing. It was a bit odd being taken to a private room to sing with just 5 other girls, but I was just going with it.

We sang for a little bit, even though I was too tired to get into it and my awful tone deaf voice was as bad as it could have been. We left the students to grab dinner and met up with a couple other friends later on, but we were so tired that we'd all filtered out by 10:30. I went home, finished watching a movie, and went to bed.

And I feel fine today, which is a nice thing. I went for a run this morning and have been able to enjoy the beautiful weather. Later this afternoon Ecuador plays Brazil in a qualifying match for the World Cup, and everyone is out wearing their yellow national team shirts. Even I have mine on, and everyone was looking at me strangely, wondering why a gringo would have the shirt.

So it will be another typical Sunday of lesson planning, relaxing, and hanging out in the house. All before starting another week of just counting down the days until Friday.