She's A Mother Now
I've learned that as we age, we pass different signposts along the way that update our self-perception. Some are physical and some are psychological. Personal examples: I'm now older than almost all professional athletes (one reason why I like Roger Clemens). Also, I'm no longer attracted to women younger than thirty; they seem more like girls than women (strangely, that realization was less traumatic for me than the one about pro sports).
Does reading this make anyone else feel really old?
Does reading this make anyone else feel really old?
posted by The Cunning Realist at Monday, June 11, 2007
29 Comments:
The one that really hammered it home for me was when a younger friend of mine referred to The Rocky Horror Picture Show as "a relic from the days before AIDS"...
A couple of years ago someone asked my mother if turning 80 made her feel old. She said that what made her feel old was not so much turning 80, but rather, having her daughter turn 60.
First milestone was getting a speeding ticket from a cop that was younger than me. Uh, that was a few years back.
And anon ... my mom says the same thing about my upcoming 50th.
I'm only 31, (I still find women under 30 attractive. But women over thirty have been becoming more attractive to me more and more as time passes.) and I remember that! And yes, it makes me feel old as well!
(That and the gradual lose of my hair. Good thing I shaved it off and I like how I look bald.)
Here's what makes me feel old....I remember when "BREAKING NEWS" meant somebody shot the President, or the moon landing, or the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. I remember when you really never heard "the seven dirty words" you can't say on television. I remember when My Lai opened our collective national eyes to the atrocity of war. I remember when a sitting President said "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal" and we were offended by the implications of that statement.
I remember a time when these things were not trivial, but stood as defining moments in our national consciousness as to who we chose to be individually and collectively, and who we were choosing to be in the future for the sake of our children and their children. I was pretty young when these things happened, but as I mourn for the country I remember, I feel old.
I had just moved and was out of work when Jessica fell down the well, so I didn't pay much attention. Awareness of age difference came to me, probably in the early 90s, when I realized that Vietnam was as far away in time and perception from high school students of that time as World War II was for me when I was in high school. I mentioned this to my father, who had parachuted into Normandy, and his comment was, "World War 2 was yesterday."
I remember thinking in the late 60s, when I was in high school, that WWII was a long, long time ago. But the end of that war was more recent, then, than the election of Ronald Reagan as president is with respect to the present... and that seems like part of an extended present to me. I think this is just the way time is perceived through the arc of life; as you reach maturity it seems to pass much more quickly than in youth; it isn't clear to me at 54 whether this effect continues to accelerate or just evens out. In any case, no, what TCR says doesn't make me feel old; it sounds like the musings of a young person who hasn't had the perspective of a decade and a half of middle age to make him realize that life always changes, and every day you're closer to its end, so you should make the very best of it you can.
For me, it was the first time I saw "The Graduate" and realized that Mrs. Robinson was way hotter than her daughter.
For me, I have just not bothered to notice the signposts. Oh I see them, but they go by so fast, thus, easily ignored.
Oh, many things have. Let's say, the time a few kids had to make a phone call on a rotary dial phone and they had no idea how it worked.
Screw that steroid gobbling jerk Roger Clemens (no, I don't have proof). Julio Franco's the man!
For me, it's been the fact that I can now use the phrase "I've reached the age where...." legitimately (I turned 44 this year).
Wow, so, I have a chance! :)
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