I’m old. I didn’t think I was, but I am. I thought I was young, cool, hip. I drive a cool car, I have a smart phone and I drink brown liquor. I wear silly t-shirts and I listen to alternative music. But really at the end of the day, I can wear as many ‘cats playing piano’ t-shirts as I want to, but the fact still remains: I’m old and it’s SHIT!
I didn’t think I was old. It sneaks up on you. One day you have a spot and then a line and then a grey hair that sticks straight up on your head, like an antenna, and you’re befuddled. What? What’s this? Why, I’m not that old! Why yes....yes you are.
Your kid knows more about computers than you do and that makes you feel pretty old. My kid fiddles around with my computer as if she’s been programming for years. And taking her friends around in my old car makes me feel mega old. They point to the window roller-uppers and ashtrays in awe and act as if they've just discovered something in King Tut's Tomb! And when you say there is no air conditioning - it’s as if you told them there was no Santa Clause! “What? No air conditioning?! Wow, this car is really old!” Ok...you go merge some files and I’ll be here rolling my windows up by hand!
Soon things like... “When I was your age.....” or “When I was a kid....” start uncontrollably shooting out of your mouth. You keep your vitamins on a lazy susan on your dining room table, you still call music you buy from iTunes “records”, you just figured out what iTunes is, you mourn the loss of rides at Disneyland and the days of only one area code and when you had no belly instead of the 2 you have now and when ordering a burger was an “of course” instead of an “I shouldn’t” and when you had a crush on Davey Jones when he was still on tv!
But you don’t really think you’re old. You think you’re cool, eccentric, full of knowledge and wisdom...Nope. you’re old. Old as dirt, as Methuselah, as shit, as fuck! You’re so fucking old, you even know what a douche bag is!
And what frightens me the most about getting old is not the aching bones or the old face (although that is a drag!) but being out of touch. I don’t want that feeling like everyone else is in on the joke but me.....sort of like where my dad is at now. But I know soon enough I’m going to start saying things like “What? Who’s that? What is that? What did he say?” and it scares the shit out of me!
Now I gotta go ask my kid how to do that thing with the thing with the thing on my phone.
