Not My Circus, Not My Password

We catch up on my life, then zero in on the moment many of us reach with age: I’m too old for this nonsense, not from anger but from perspective. We talk about protecting energy, setting cleaner boundaries, and why life gets simpler when we stop tolerating what never made sense. 
• noticing how perspective changes with age and why energy feels like currency 
• comfort winning over painful “cute” choices and other outdated trade-offs 
• spotting drama as an energy sucker and stepping back from fixer mode 
• choosing “not my circus” boundaries with family and friends 
• dealing with technology frustration and knowing when to walk away 
• quitting the habit of overexplaining and using clear simple no’s 
• valuing time more and rejecting meetings that should have been emails 
• building a simpler day-to-day that centers connection and meaningful work 

Just head to marcybackhusmedia.com. 
Go out and do something positive. 
email:marcybackhusmedia@gmail.com

Transcript

Welcome, Music, And Mantra

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello and welcome to Aging Name for Sissies. My name is Marcy Backis, and I am your host. And I am so happy to have that piece of music back. Somehow it got mishmashed, and it wasn't maybe it sounded right to you. It did not to me. And uh I finally went back to where I originally got the piece, just downloaded a new clip, and I am very happy because out of all my podcasts, which I love all three of them, that is my favorite music. And it was the first music I chose for this, my very first podcast, Aging A for Sissies was the one I started with. And I have struggled with music since, but I've got everything clear for all my other episodes with my other ones. But anyhow, anyhow, anyhow, anyhow, I'm glad you're here. Welcome back. If you are new, we're welcome you're here. If you are one of my longtime listeners, thank you, and I appreciate it. And I want to say hello to all of my fabulous friends and welcome back to Aging Ape for Sissies, the podcast where we can talk honestly about getting older, the good parts, the funny parts, the slightly creaky parts, and all the wisdom that comes along with it. And as always, I like to remind us of our little mantra around here. Around here, we are not aging quietly, we are aging intentionally. Now, if you listen to last week's episode, we talked about something really important and we talked about energy. How at this stage of life, energy becomes like a currency. We talked about protecting it, not wasting it, not spending it on things that drain us. And that conversation leads us very naturally in today's episode. Because once you start protecting your energy, you start realizing something pretty quickly. There are a lot of things in life that make you say, yeah, I'm too old for this nonsense. Or I don't mean that we become grumpy old people yelling at clouds, although occasionally the clouds deserve it. What I mean is that at this stage of life, we develop something very powerful called perspective. We stop tolerating things that never made sense in the first place. And honestly, that may be one of the greatest perks of aging. So, as that's going to be what we're talking about, I'll catch you up on my life. Um, it's pretty darn good right now. I'm not gonna lie. Doing very well. Several different doctors' appointments, but all good. Figuring some things out, waiting for some tests, nothing horrible. Um, Chicago has given us everything this week from 70 degree weather on Monday. Tuesday, we had a huge thunder, lightning, hailstorm. Yesterday was Wednesday in the afternoon. There was the fluffiest and largest snowflakes of the size of a silver dollar that I've ever seen in my life. Crazy talk, right? Like that's just insane. So we've had a little bit of everything. Today is gorgeous, gorgeous sunshine. I think it might be in the 40s. We have a high wind warning. We have some high winds coming. Tomorrow's gonna be very windy. And the greatest thing about tomorrow is I have one of those days that guess what? I do not have to go anywhere or do anything. I have my AA meeting, 7 p.m. Friday nights, but that's it. I have food in the house. I'm gonna do a little cleaning, a little laundry. Today is my admin day. And if you don't know what an admin day is, go back and listen to my inside Marcy's mind from last week. How an admin day can give you a lot of time back in your life and keep you organized. So today is admin day. On admin day, I do all three of my podcasts and paperwork and blah blah blah blah blah blah. That is what's happening today. I'm happy. I went to work out today with my trainer, and then uh for my trainer, I went to my class, my water class. I'm tired, I'm exhausted, but a good kind of tired and exhausted. Our pool was full of all kinds of our friends and our pool pals were there. And I think we had 10 for coffee today. We always go to coffee upstairs after workout. You could have iced tea, you can have whatever you want, but we call it coffee. And there were 10 of us. Conversations flying this way and that, talking about all kinds of things. Um, it's it's we're quite a delightful bunch. And ladies, if you're listening, I love you and thank you for being a part of my life. So, right now, life is good. Craig and I are working through some things we've been working through for the last few weeks, some pretty serious things, but that's okay. We're doing it and we're doing the work, and uh hopefully we come out on the other side. So, right now, that is my life. Planning some trips. We were going to go to Cairo and Jordan in October, but as you all know, that part of the world is not very stable right now. So I think we're gonna put off that trip. And we've decided, well, we're going to see Alec in Denver and my great nephew Chris in the end of April. And then the summer, I like to stay around here, but August, I always go to Arizona, and then I'm gonna go to Palm Desert. But our Cairo Jordan trip we put off for the fall. So, our fall trip, we have decided is gonna be a driving trip. And the best part about now living in the middle of the country, you can drive all kinds of places. On the West Coast, you're kind of trapped with what you can do. And I've uh outdone that as we know I drove across the country. But we are gonna drive up, we're gonna go over to Detroit, cut up from Detroit, go into Canada, go across Canada, and go see Niagara Falls on the Canada side. We've got all kinds of stops and places we're gonna go. Hopefully by then, I love my car. But yeah, as you all know, I'm looking for a new car. Uh it's time. And uh yeah, so that's kind of fun. And I'll tell you, if you've never used AI, I use Chat GPT for everything. I love Chat GPT. Anybody that knows me, ChatGPT is my life. It's my therapist, it's my you name it. I use Chat GPT and I had I put in my parameters of what I wanted, and it planned a great trip for me in less than 20 seconds. So why do the hard work when it can do it for you? And I'm looking forward to that trip. We'll probably go to California for 4th of July. I'm not sure about that yet, but probably. Got my name on the list. I think I shared this with you for the um 2028 Olympics in LA to get some tickets. I want to go see some things. I went to the 1984 Olympics, so I'm excited about that. That's all that's really happening. It's gonna be time to change over the wardrobe here soon. Every time I think about it, we get a cold day and I it just can't do it. So it's March. Probably do that in April. I hope your life is good right now. I hope things are going well. And if they're not, keep moving forward because there's nothing worse than being stuck. So let's talk about the nonsense tolerance meter. When you're younger, you tolerate a lot. And I mean a lot. You tolerate drama, you tolerate chaos, you tolerate people who talk too much and listen too little, you tolerate uncomfortable shoes. Oh, good lord, did I tolerate a lot of uncomfortable shoes? So let's just start there. Because somewhere around your 40s, you start thinking, these shoes are cute. And somewhere around your 60s, you start thinking these shoes are a crime against humanity. You begin to realize that suffering for style is ridiculous. Comfort wins. Now, with that being said, comfort wins. It better be cute, comfort. I am not about ugly old lady shoes. There's great tennis shoes. I mean, we are so blessed in this day and time and what we can get in fashion that's comfortable. We should say a hallelujah right there. So hallelujah for comfortable, good-looking fashion. But comfort does win, especially here. You know, it's um unless I'm taking an Uber to dinner where I can just walk in, I'll wear a shoe that's not super comfortable to dinner. But I'll tell you, if we're walking, I have to wear something that looks good and is comfy. Oh. Which is where the phrase comes in, I'm too old for this nonsense. Not angry, not bitter, just aware. I shared a little bit that Craig and I are going through something, and it it's it's a pretty big something. But we're walking through it, we're stepping through it. And in part of us walking through that, that is some place where I realized I'm not willing to put up with A, B, C, or D anymore. And I'm certainly not willing to put up with E that I just found out about. So this happens in life. And it may happen with your shoes, and it may happen with a relationship. But I'm too old for this nonsense. And again, not angry, not bitter, just aware. Just aware. It may be friendships, it may be your children's nonsense, it may be it could be a lot of things. It could be where you live, it could be what you drive, it could be any of those things that you realize you're just not willing to put up with it. Drama is expensive. One of the biggest nonsense categories is drama. You know the kind. The friend who's always in crisis, the family member who thrives on conflict, the co-worker who turns everything into a production. When we were younger, we often tried to fix it, and I am a fixer. I I will go down telling you I'm a fixer. I want to fix everything, and I want to fix it now, and I want to fix it. I'm working on my fixing it because that's not either that is one of my things that's not good. We tried to mediate things, we tried to smooth things over, but as we get older, we realize something incredibly freeing. Not every fire is ours to put out. Craig and I were just talking about our kids, and both of them are doing great, but just talking about things. And one of the things I just looked at Craig and I said, you know what? It's not our problem. Not our problem. They are adults, and they may not see it as a problem. And so I have to let things go. And it's very freeing. Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is step back and say, I wish you well, but I'm not participating in that circus. What's that saying? Not my circus, not my monkeys. That's true a lot of the times. I like that saying though, I wish you well, but I'm not participating in that circus. Because if last week taught us anything, it's that energy matters. We talked about energy. Drama is expensive. It's an energy sucker. It burns through your emotional energy faster than almost anything else. And at this age, we are no longer interested in emotional bankruptcy. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not in my marriage. I'm not in my family relationships. I'm not in my friendships, nowhere. All right. Let's talk about technology nonsense. Now let's talk about something that brings all together a shared frustration. Technology. Now, listen, I am a technology lover. I am an embracer. I love it. Obviously, I talked to you about I love AI. I have learned AI. I want to learn more about AI. AI is helping with conversational Spanish. I was going to spend$500 on a Spanish class, and I thought, wait, let's see if AI can help me with Spanish. Dagnabit, it is after this. I have to do my Spanish lesson. But um I really do love technology. It allows us to stay connected. It allows me to do this podcast. It allows me to talk to all of you. But there are moments, and you know exactly those moments I'm talking about where technology becomes pure nonsense. I'll tell you where mine is. I don't know what it is about my iPhone, but it gets really bad reception. It drove me crazy on my trip. I thought, well, maybe it's still driving me crazy. I need to take it in. I need to trade it in. I need to do something. It's not that old. It's a year and a half old, but it is, it's horrible. I've done everything. And you know this. You unplug things, you turn them on, you turn them off, you update, you unupdate you. Oh my God. Ah. What other moments are we talking about? Your eye, you use your finger to scan into things. It doesn't do it. It looks at your face and it says, it's not you. I'm not opening up. Um, you try to log in, it asks for a password. You enter the password, it says it's wrong. You're like, this is the only password I know. You reset the password. Now it says your new password cannot be the same as your old password. Okay, but I just put is that not the most maddening thing in life? You're changing your password because it said it was wrong. You use that as your new password, and it says you cannot use the same as your old password. So you create another password. Now it says your password must include a capital letter, a symbol, a number, a small poem, and the blood type of your first pet. And that's the point where you just sit there thinking, I am too old for this nonsense. Give me a human being. I find myself calling, I don't care, insurance, dental, comp, whatever it is. And I'm so off in my thoughts, it'll get to and push five for whatever. And I don't even know what one, two, three, and four are. And then I missed push the pound sign to go back to the front of the line. I honestly, I am too old for this nonsense, and I want a human being. Give me a button that says help. Because sometimes technology forgets the one thing it's supposed to do, make life easier. I'm over it. I will walk away and I will stop if something frustrates me now with technology. We need it, we have to use it, but you don't need to allow it to overwhelm you. Over-explaining ourselves. We've talked a little bit about this in the last few episodes. This is another form of nonsense many of us are retiring from. Now, like technology, we can't really retire from it and we can't walk away from it. But we can learn it. I should have said that before we move on to the next episode. We can learn. And this is something I'm working with Craig on because he always wants me to help him, but he never retains what I teach him. So I have to do it again. And at this point, I'm writing down things that I help him with, and I will not help him again. I've helped you pay attention and learn. Make yourself better. Make life easier. All right. On to overexplaining ourselves. I've talked about multitude times that no is a complete sentence. So here's another type of nonsense many of us are retiring from overexplaining. For years, we felt like we had to justify everything. If we couldn't attend something, we had to give it a full explanation. Well, I'm sorry, but I just realized, as a matter of fact, that Craig and I are not going to be able to attend a wedding of a young couple because we'll be at Alex, and I will just let them know we won't be unable to attend. I don't need to go, well, we're going to our sons, and if I'd known, I would blah blah blah blah. Nobody cares. And I'm tired. I've had a long week. My knee has been bothering me, and blah, blah, blah. No. At some point, you realize something, a simple sentence works just fine. Like, no is a complete sentence, so is I can't make it. That's it. No performance, no essay, just clarity. It's funny how we're afraid to be clear. We worry about that. And the funny thing is, when you stop overexplaining, you stop draining your own energy again. Which again brings us back to last week's episode protecting our energy, because sometimes the nonsense isn't just what other people do. Sometimes it's a pressure we put on ourselves. So these things are things you need to retire from. And before we keep going, this is a perfect moment for me to tell you something. If you enjoy Aging A for Sissies, you might also enjoy some of my other projects. I host another podcast called Inside Marcy's Mind, where we talk about life lessons, everyday hacks, and little things that make life run a little smoother. Also, that's where I get to mouth off if I have things that are irritating me. And I also help host another podcast called Unbottled, which focuses on sobriety and the journey of living alcohol free. Just a little hint on that one. It's really about addiction. So if you scroll too much, you eat too much, you buy too much, you might learn something there too. All three shows are a little different, but they share the same thing. Real conversations about real life. You can find them along with articles and updates over at my website. Just head to Marcybacchusmedia.com. Everything is right there in one place. All three of my podcasts and anything I talk about that I think I need to give you a link to. So if you want more Marcy in your week, and honestly, who wouldn't, go check that out. All right, let's get back to today's topic. We're talking about nonsense in our life. Meetings that should have been emails. Here's another category of nonsense. Meetings that should have been emails. Now, some of you are laughing because you know exactly what I mean. Someone schedules a meeting, everyone sits down, 30 minutes later, you realize the entire conversation could have been two sentences. And at this age, we start thinking, why are we doing this? Because time becomes more valuable, energy becomes more valuable, and peace becomes more valuable. So when something unnecessarily complicated shows up in your life, you recognize it faster and you quietly think, no, thank you. No, thank you. So there's a beauty to this simpler type of living. One of the unexpected gifts of getting older is that life actually gets simpler. It does. My day-to-day consisted of getting up, enjoying my coffee, talking with my husband. This is something new that we're doing. Because those of you that know Craig know he's not a great communicator, but after 35 years, communication is needed and we're working on it. So we now have a chat in the morning, talk about our days, what he's going to be doing, what I'm going to be doing, what our dinner plans are. We kind of just set up our day. It's something that I really love. It's simple. He goes off, I get ready, I go to the gym. Today I drove to the gym, charged my car, and went to the grocery store. Came home, put my groceries away, and now I'm doing admin day, which is Thursdays, is my admin day. I'm getting my podcast done. I will get all of the emails answered. I have some people that want to be. Um yes, and I've got to get that set up. I've got things I need to do. But it's simple. If I don't get it done today, I'll get it done tomorrow. But I'll get most of it done today. And this isn't because the world gets simpler. It's because we do. We start focusing on what actually matters. Good conversations, great conversations at coffee today with my friends. Meaningful work, experiences. This is my meaningful work. My podcasts, I love these podcasts. I love talking to you, I love sharing information. It's meaningful work. Experience that bring us joy. Just the conversation with Craig in the morning. And making an effort to connect is something that we're trying to do. And I love it. A quiet morning, a walk outside, a great meal with someone you love. All the things that younger versions of us sometimes rush past. Because we're too busy changing, because we were too busy changing everything else. When you remove the nonsense, what's left is actually pretty wonderful. So if you've been saying to yourself lately, I'm too old for this nonsense, you're not becoming difficult. You're becoming wise. You're recognizing what deserves your time and what absolutely does not. And that's part of aging intentionally. What have we talked about? What is my catchphrase? We age intentionally here. Because remember, around here, we're not aging quietly, we're aging intentionally. And when you start living that way, something really interesting happens. Life gets lighter, life gets clearer, and life gets a whole lot more enjoyable. Thanks again for spending your a little time with me today. And I'll see you next week for another episode of Aging A for Sissies. Because getting older may not be for sissies, but it can still be pretty fantastic. Go out and do something positive.