Thoughts on Getting Old

"Once scared of the banalities and annoyances that they believed defined adulthood, Everything Sucks is the Descendents realizing that their worst fears had come true. Growing old, they found, sucks. Judging by the songs, in fact, it’s safe to say that it’s even worse than they might have thought." - A.V. Club

 “I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.” - Douglas Adams

"Don't trust anyone over 30." - Jack Weinberg

The other day a friend of mine on Facebook said that her teenage daughter had just turned old enough to get her own Facebook account. She didn't want it because it's for old people.

For a while I had known that at my thirty-five years of age, I was slipping away from youth culture. New music comes out and I don't get it. I listen to teenagers talk and I have to resist laughing at them as they try to sound like adults but completely lack the life experience to do so. They try to sound profound but just sound self-absorbed. I knew I was getting old.

But knowing that teenagers don't even want to be on Facebook nowadays was the realization that I'm not getting old. I am old.

Ugh.

I never wanted to get this old. When I was 14 I told my history teacher that my main goal in life was to make sure I died before I reached 30. He asked what I was going to do if I made it to one day before my 30th birthday. In my dark sense of humor, I told him, "Suicide by cop."

Bruce Lee was 32 when he died. Shortly before his death he expressed fears of getting older. Getting older meant that he'd be getting weaker. It would be harder for him to fight other men in their 20s that were up and coming in the martial arts world. I wish that were the half of it.

The physical part of getting old sucks. There is no doubt about that. My first day home after Initial Entry Training in the Army (when I was 22) had me hanging out with friends until four in the morning, getting four hours of sleep, and running two miles before doing it all over again the next day. I got less than 12 hours of sleep the first three days I was home and did a workout routine that would kill weaker men on a full night of sleep. I miss having that kind of crazy energy. Now, if I don't drink enough protein shakes and take vitamins, I'm a dead man walking. I didn't have calcium deposits in my shoulder back then, because shit like that doesn't happen when you're 22.

The physical part is only one part of it, though. The hardest part is the uncertainty that comes with knowing that the world is changing all around you and you aren't able to keep up with it. So kids don't want to do Facebook anymore. That's fine, but could someone PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK SNAPCHAT IS?! I have no idea what it is, nor do I know why I would need to use it. While I'm still up to date on most forms of technology, any bit of social media that isn't called Facebook is a complete mystery to me. The only other social media account I have is Twitter, and I don't even use it.

Then there's the financial aspect of it all. The odds of finding financial security get worse and worse every year. Am I going to spend the rest of my life in debt and working overtime to pay the bills, missing my daughters growing up in the process? Why can't I just get a 40 hour a week job with the weekends off that will take care of my financial needs? I'm not even asking to be rich, just middle class, and it seems like every year that's getting harder and harder to obtain and keep. It's beyond frustrating.

When you're a kid, other adults train you for adulthood (even if you don't listen to them). They tell you to go to college, get a good paying job, get a 401(k), and to save your money. What they never prepare you for is what comes after that. How do you deal with a world that's changing all around you too fast? How do you deal with having responsibility and loss of freedom that comes with having to take care of other people? What happens when your friends all get married and start having kids? What happens when you watch them getting divorced? What about when they start dying?

If I had to guess, the adults didn't have the answers to those questions because they were just starting to experience all that for themselves.

I was born in 1981. I'm the very last remnant of what's known as "Generation X". I lived most of my life well. I didn't become a teenage parent. I served my country when the nation ended up suffering the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. I have a college degree, although I got it much later than most. Yet here I am, getting older and constantly asking myself, "Where do we go from here?"

I honestly don't know. The only thing that's left now is uncertainty.