Rapidly Approaching Senility

Rapidly Approaching Senility

September 17, 2009, 4:42 pm
Filed under: aging, Grandpa, Madison, thirties

Getting off the bus at Johnson and Mills the other day, I was quickly disoriented: Was there some kind of high school event going on? The state wrestling convention is later in the year, I thought. And the summer high school programs are over… Who were these thousands of kids swirling around me in their expedition-worthy North Face backpacks and sweatpants?

And then it dawned on me.

They weren’t kids. They were undergrads. And that’s when I knew:

I am old. I have finally gotten old.

There was a time, not too long ago, when I felt like I was a compatriot to these undergrads, when I felt like, essentially, we were the same age. When people even mistook me for a high school student. There was a time, not too long ago, when I even felt a little insecure about how close we were in age, how that nearness in age might impact my teaching and work, how it might prevent someone from taking me seriously. There was a time, not so long ago, when I still was young.

Proof that I’m old: I prefer to spend my weekends gardening.

But that time, apparently, has passed. Now, I look at twenty-year-olds and I think, “Kids.” Now, I am like the wizened old lady shaking my head at their mopeds and sweatpants and drunken ways, sharing my own stories of bygone undergrad ways from the perspective of a senior student. Now, I am old.

And as I stood there, disoriented, among the throngs of teeny-boppers, the litany of ways in which I am most definitely old swamped me. I was so swamped by this rising tide of oldness that I had trouble making my way to the office and, once I was there, forgetting everything that I was supposed to do. And that, my friends, is the first proof of many that I am most definitely old: my poor memory and my responsible job.

Top 20 reasons that I am officially old:

1. I have an office. With a microwave. That I like quiet.
2. Sometimes I forget words. Really simple ones. Ones I should know. And then I think, “S*it. My brain is getting old.”
3. I own wrinkle cream. Which I use.
4. A really exciting weekend involves working in the garden, replacing bathroom fixtures, and marveling at the powers of my super-charged, pet-hair-removing vacuum.
5. It takes a really long time to bounce back from injuries…like a year long.
6. I would rather not be drunk for long stretches of time, unlike 90% of Madison students.
7. My alarm wakes me up to—not music, not buzzing, but—NPR.
8. I own a crockpot.
9. Since turning 30, I have had three surgeries—the first three surgeries of my life.
10. I feel bad if I don’t send out holiday cards.
11. There are no monumental, exciting birthdays left…except the one that grants me AARP status, discounts at the movie theatre, and senior coffees at McDonald’s.
12. I have former students that are married, that are teachers, that make more money than me, and that are old enough to be my…friend.
13. I do not keep abreast of cutting edge, hip music. Sometimes I go for days without listening to music.
14. I use words like “abreast.”
15. I watched “Gossip Girl” once…and thought it was kind of dumb.
16. Sometimes I catch myself telling stories that start with, “Well, when I was your age…”
17. I have been out of college and high school longer than I was in them.
18. I have fantasies of unlimited shopping sprees at home goods stores.
19. I own a suit.
20. I found my first gray hair.

Now to those of you who are even older, who are laughing at my 31-year-old age crisis, all I have to say is, Whatever. There was a day when you realized that you were old, too. And even though you’ve embraced your senior citizen status now that you’re, like, forty, doesn’t mean that the day you became old was any less traumatizing.

Because it is traumatizing. Especially because the one piece of regular advice that my adored grandfather used to share with me every time I visited was, “Listen, Brat, don’t get old.” And then he’d take a Ritz cracker out of the tray, crack open another Old Mil, glance up from his Archie Bunker chair to the score of whatever sporting event was showing on his TV, and then—without shifting his gaze from the golf match or Cubs game—repeat vehemently, “I’m serious. Don’t. Get. Old.”

I used to think that was some kind of cute Grandpa advice, the kind of cryptic [ugh, see, I just forgot another really simple word…not idiom, not aphorism…what the hell is that word?! Fine, I’ll just use…] saying grandfathers are famous for. The kind of one-liners that end up on their tombstones but don’t actually mean anything. But now I realize: He was serious. I mean, it was the only practical advice I ever got from him (except for, “When you’re dribbling, make sure you look your opponent in the eyes.” Supposed to be practical, but one small problem: I don’t play basketball.)

In my family, I didn’t learn anything useful, like budgeting or buying a house or setting up retirement funds or starting your own business. Nope: I just learned not to get old.

So imagine my dismay the other day when I realized, Shit. I got old.

Just as quickly as that list of evidence that I am, in fact, old became a tidal wave of depressing facts, I forced myself to start listing all the ways that I am actually not old. Because, surely, there must still be a kid in here. I mean, I did marry the most Peter Pan of all Peter Pans (who clings to this forever-child identity by surrounding himself with a cadre of man-child best friends)…and I am, biologically, even younger than the forever-child. And despite my, ahem, intellectual maturity since I was a wee one, I was always a bit socially and physically immature (Proof: I played with Barbies well into middle school. I didn’t even start playing sports until I was fourteen. And don’t get me started on the trauma of admitting in eighth grade that I had not yet kissed a boy.) Lucky for me, this list is equally weighty.

Proof that I’m not old: I still like to frolic and make a fool of myself.

Top 20 reasons that I am not, actually, that old:

1. In my office, at my responsible job and which I like quiet, I have a desk that is covered in paper and that I can’t be bothered with organizing.  I still need someone to tell me to “clean my room.”
2. I might forget words, but otherwise, my memory is like a steel trap. Especially with names. Take that, Alzheimer’s!
3. I own zit cream. Which I use.
4. A really exciting weekend might also include a dance marathon.
5. My doctor of choice for those year-long injuries, who is essentially the same age as me, calls me “young lady.”
6. I get carded. Regularly. Even when everyone else I’m with is let in to bars or liquor stores ID-free.
7. I still need to hit snooze a gazillion times before I can get up, and I am still grumpy in the morning. In fact, I need as much sleep as a teenager.
8. I have only used said crockpot in preparation for raging parties.
9. One of those surgeries was in preparation for braces, which I proudly wear. Including colored rubber bands. And overall, I am pretty dang healthy. And I still qualify for youth/student insurance breaks (unlike Fresh, who is really old.)
10. I might feel bad, but I usually don’t follow through on sending out those holiday cards.
11. While the numbers aren’t exciting, the birthday celebrations are.
12. I am, numerically, only a few years older than those former students who seem so much like me.
13. When I do listen to music, I really like the teeny-bopper station. You know, Beyonce. Fergie. Flo Rida.
14. While I am know to use words like “abreast,” I also use words like, um, I’m embarrassed to say. But I’m definitely hip on slang, yo.
15. I might not like “Gossip Girl,” but I love “America’s Next Top Model.”
16. I learned to type…on a computer…when I was seven. Proof enough that I am young, young, young! And that truly old people have me beat with their, “When I was your age…” stories.
17. I am still a student.
18. I also have fantasies of shopping sprees at Forever 21 and Charlotte Russe.
19. I never wear said suit.
20. I only found one gray hair. It was a fluke.

And the ultimate proof that I am not old:

Sometimes I am compelled to skip, even in public.

Okay, phew. Maybe I’m not as old as I thought. But the possibility of it is still a little terrifying. I mean, one day you’re a kid, carefree and young, and the next you’re, you’re…in your thirties. Ugh. Sorry, Grandpa, but I think it’s inevitable: I’m going to get old. Might as well skip on the way there…

Are you old? Not old? Share your own age revelations with me!

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