Hot Thots. Hot Thots. On Birthdays Now. By Dish Stanley

Hot Thots. On Birthdays Now. By Dish Stanley

I Just Celebrated Another Birthday. It Was Good! But What Were My Deep Thoughts?

I can’t believe how much time it takes.

That’s what I keep coming back to on aging. How much f*cking time it takes.

I can’t believe nobody told me this. You’d have thought somebody (like my Mother, an Aunt or my neighbor — a really cool woman in her 70’s) might have said something. “Like having a puppy, you’ll need to put considerably more time aside for caring and feeding …”

It takes copious amounts of time to get older. Huge chunks of time that I used to spend doing productive, or at least fun, things — things like analyzing pitch decks, reading history, playing online mah jongg, cajoling friends to come over for dinner — are instead now being used for this:

Walking 10,000 steps, drinking 15.5 cups water, eating 130 grams of protein (yet staying under 2,000 calories), getting eight hours of sleep DAILY;

Monitoring the walking, drinking, eating and sleeping;

Researching whether the science is real on the benefits of various peptides, creatine, collagen, pumpkin oil and magnesium:

Subscribing to and/or following multiple ’healthspan’ newsletters and podcasts;

Developing a nightly ‘sleep ramp’ that shuts my day down an hour earlier than my bedtime;

Adhering to a (near) nightly protocol to address hair thinning that involves a head massager, a DHT blocker, minoxidil serum and eyelash and eyebrow serums;

Applying sunscreen all over daily (I am in shorts nearly year round);

Searching (high and low) for an ObGYN with certification from The Menopause Society;

Getting a routine gut test, a dexascan, bone density test and colonoscopies;

Forming a new, long-term relationship with yet another medical professional for monthly appointments to get lasered, botoxed, waxed, peeled, micro-needled or filled;

Going to the gym 2-3 times a week to lunge, squat and press and dumbbells;

Ordering sex lube in bulk (just in case, CRUSHes!, just in case!).

All of that is new and on top of what I used to do for my health, wellness and appearance, which was generally get plenty of exercise, play sports and get a cut and highlights 3-5 times a year.

This doesn’t even touch on the things I’ve given up, like a nightly glass of wine while I cook, escaping into a novel until I fall asleep reading, bingeing on episodes of Seinfeld, not to mention some of my formerly favorite people, who unfortunately I had to admit give off too many bad vibes.

I was talking about this with my friend Dina recently and she humorously pointed out that the list will continue to get longer every day.

I’m not laughing! It’s as if all the things I do to increase my healthspan are squeezing out time for actually living it up.

I like it up here in my sixties, but I want my downtime back.

The Crush Letter
The Crush Letter is a weekly newsletter from Dish Stanley curating articles & intelligence on everything love & connection - friendship, romance, self-love, sex. If you’d like to take a look at some of our best stories go to Read Us. Want the Dish?