It has recently been brought to my attention that I am … how do I put this appropriately? Oh, that’s right: old.
Last week, I went three or four days without shaving, and there was no denying the not-insignificant amount of salt in what was once an exclusively pepper beard. I’m the parent of a child who can and on occasion does say that I’m a bit out of touch. Try as I might, it’s getting tough to ignore the growing pile of evidence that I just may be irrelevant.
Look, I’m completely at peace with my own personal standing as a grumpy old man. My demeanor has occupied that space since my early 20s. But this is different. Media, social and otherwise, seems to be telling me to get with the times or get out of the way. It’s not like I was around when the pyramids were built, or when Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg, or even when cellphones were invented. Age-wise, I am smack-dab between LeBron James and Taylor Swift. So, dad bod notwithstanding, I was under the impression that I was at least on the outskirts of the cultural zeitgeist. Au contraire.
Remember the good old days – could’ve sworn it was just last week – when my millennial peers and I were the bane of Western civilization, playing video games in our moms’ basements and adamantly defending the validity of “freelance blogger” as a career choice? Now, apparently, we’ve moved past that and skipped straight to being a blight on good taste, an assault on coolness with our mortgages and our no-show socks and our Kelly Clarkson. To Gen Z (which we should all agree is a supremely uncreative label – do better, generation namers), we might as well be baby boomers. That hurts a little.
But should it?
The day after I graduated from high school, my grandpa said to me, “Well, congratulations. Now you’re the same age as I am.” He said it with a playful grin on his face, his eyes twinkling under the brim of a sweat-and-who-knows-what-else-stained Stetson that probably should have been retired a decade earlier. But it was clear that Grandpa believed in the principle of what he said.
Of course, 18 years old was not and never will be the same as 70. I had yet to grow a real mustache or pay for my own insurance or stand on trembling knees before the father of my dream girl and ask for her hand. I couldn’t claim to have walked the budgetary line between 80-cent calves and 5-dollar diesel. I hadn’t ever gotten major bad news from the doctor or had my faith attacked or gained the patience and wisdom that grows from the fertile ground of broken-down tractors and overpriced horse hay and high cholesterol.
The message Grandpa conveyed, in not so many words, was that all of that was coming – at some point in the near or distant future – and that when it did, it would be on my shoulders to bear it. More importantly, he was conveying that he knew I could handle that pressure and responsibility. That so long as I acted like a grownup, I was within my rights to expect to be treated like a grownup. Grandpa’s little joke that wasn’t a joke has stuck with me, and I’ve tried to live my life by it.
So the question remains: Am I an old man?
You bet I am.
