On Turning Forty
"Well, it's finally happening. I'm talking about the long-predicted Aging Process. I see many signs of it in my own life. For example, I have become tremendously concerned about my gums. There was a time when I could go for decades without thinking about my gums, but recently they have come to loom far larger in my mind than the Greenhouse Effect.
Also, younger people I meet keep using the word "Mister," causing me to whirl around and look behind me, expecting to see somebody with whom I associate this title, such as the Pope, or Walter Kronkite, only to realize that these young people are talking to me.
Also, if I attempt to throw a softball without carefully warming up, I have to wait until approximately the next presidential administration before I can attempt to do this again.
Also, I have long, animated conversations with my friends- friends with whom I used to ingest banned substances and swim naked- on the importance of dietary fiber.
Also, I find myself asking my son, in a solemn parental voice, the same profoundly stupid old-fogey questions that my parents used to ask me, such as: "Do you want to poke somebody's eye out?"
Also- this is the most terrifying- I sometimes catch myself humming along to elevator music.
Of course I'm not alone. Growing older is a Major Lifestyle Trend, potentially even bigger than cable television.
I always knew that somebody had to be the grownups, and now it seems to be our turn.
The problem is, I'm not sure we're ready. I've been hanging around with people roughly my own age for the bulk of my life, and I frankly do not feel that, as a group, we have acquired the wisdom and maturity needed to run the world, or even necessarily power tools. Many of us, I'm convinced, only look like grownups."
-Dave Barry
This passage strikes a much different chord with me at the age of 20 than it did when I was 13. That's probably because I already feel some resonance with these sentiments, and that in twice the time I've been surviving in this universe I imagine I will be in the exact same boat.
It also probably has something to do with the fact that I looked around at my friends recently to discover that we're all mostly college students. These are the people I used to think of as adults. Now all I see are a bunch of kids, still making fart jokes, still unsure of themselves, and facing even bigger problems than they're used to.
I think I've always known I'd never see my generation as "grown-up," but it's never quite hit me until now that, like it or not, we're going to grow up anyways.
I know I'm not ready to handle the world yet. To be honest, I can barely handle living in a house of four, or completing my assigned essays for class on time. I just have to trust that, just like the millions and millions of people before me, when the time comes, I will be ready.
Also, younger people I meet keep using the word "Mister," causing me to whirl around and look behind me, expecting to see somebody with whom I associate this title, such as the Pope, or Walter Kronkite, only to realize that these young people are talking to me.
Also, if I attempt to throw a softball without carefully warming up, I have to wait until approximately the next presidential administration before I can attempt to do this again.
Also, I have long, animated conversations with my friends- friends with whom I used to ingest banned substances and swim naked- on the importance of dietary fiber.
Also, I find myself asking my son, in a solemn parental voice, the same profoundly stupid old-fogey questions that my parents used to ask me, such as: "Do you want to poke somebody's eye out?"
Also- this is the most terrifying- I sometimes catch myself humming along to elevator music.
Of course I'm not alone. Growing older is a Major Lifestyle Trend, potentially even bigger than cable television.
I always knew that somebody had to be the grownups, and now it seems to be our turn.
The problem is, I'm not sure we're ready. I've been hanging around with people roughly my own age for the bulk of my life, and I frankly do not feel that, as a group, we have acquired the wisdom and maturity needed to run the world, or even necessarily power tools. Many of us, I'm convinced, only look like grownups."
-Dave Barry
This passage strikes a much different chord with me at the age of 20 than it did when I was 13. That's probably because I already feel some resonance with these sentiments, and that in twice the time I've been surviving in this universe I imagine I will be in the exact same boat.
It also probably has something to do with the fact that I looked around at my friends recently to discover that we're all mostly college students. These are the people I used to think of as adults. Now all I see are a bunch of kids, still making fart jokes, still unsure of themselves, and facing even bigger problems than they're used to.
I think I've always known I'd never see my generation as "grown-up," but it's never quite hit me until now that, like it or not, we're going to grow up anyways.
I know I'm not ready to handle the world yet. To be honest, I can barely handle living in a house of four, or completing my assigned essays for class on time. I just have to trust that, just like the millions and millions of people before me, when the time comes, I will be ready.