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I’m 33 years old. It’s a gray area where I could semantically cling to some notion of youth by claiming to be in my early 30s and get away with it, but really I’m in my mid-30s. In January I was 33 and 4 months, which meant I was one-third of the way to being 100 years old, not that I think I’ll make it.
I recently started teaching at a middle school, allowing me to officially occupy the role of Lame Old Person. This has caused a personal paradigm shift. My sense of self, as someone soon to be outside of the 18 to 34 demographic, is changing. I decided to compile a list of 5 aspects of life that won’t let me forget that cool things are no longer for me.
1. Music
I listened to the song “Bad and Boujee” by Migos, which is popular with my students. It seemed like a good way to start to understand the culture they are growing up with and therefore understand them. After all, the music I listened to when I was in middle school still sticks with me. The radio dial was life or death.
I hate “Bad and Boujee.” I’m fine with the subject matter of cooking dope in a crock pot. The beat and the rapping are boring. Why are they mumbling? Why won’t these whippersnappers enunciate?! In my day, rappers put enough thought into their bars that they wanted you to hear them. We need a hip-hop Henry Higgins.
2. Movies
There is a new Power Rangers movie coming out soon. People are psyched about it. But me? I never liked the Power Rangers. It may have been that when the show was airing it simply didn’t capture my attention. But I loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so why wouldn’t I love different ninjas in kickass helmets fighting space witches (or whatever)? It even came on TV after the Ninja Turtles. The TV programmers were setting me up to fall in love. But the show debuted when I was 10 years old and ran until I was 16. Looking back, I was getting a little long in the tooth for shows with accompanying action figures, and starting a new TV love affair wasn’t in the cards.
Well, now that show I was too old for in grade school is getting run through the nostalgia meat grinder.
3. My knees
They feel weird when I walk up stairs. They don’t hurt, but they almost hurt. They’re going to hurt soon.
4. Sports
For some reason I still check this thing from Deadspin that compares your age to pro athletes. But that’s not the only thing that makes me feel like a cranky old man.
When I was a freshman at the University of Kansas, Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison played basketball there. They are now fringe NBA veterans who should probably retire.
All-Star games keep changing! I understand that All-Star games don’t matter and the people who actually play in them would just as soon not. Especially when that game is in the middle of the season and players have the chance to fuck up the rest of their year. But dagnabbit, where’s the competitive grit that inspires players to tackle each other and jump into passing lanes? Paradoxically, anything MLB does add drama to their All-Star game reeks of bullshit to me. Baseball is the sport where players loafing it during an exhibition has the least detriment. Why not lean in?
5. My wife
She’s three-and-a-half years younger than me. Like most of us, when her age nears or hits certain round numbers, she has a mini-existential crisis. She recently spent the month prior to her 30th birthday sporadically declaring, “Oh my god, I’m going to be 30. I’m freaking out. I’m so old.” Being 33, my reserves of empathy were quickly depleted. If she is “so old,” then what am I? Really goddamn old? Obviously, I understood her feelings. It’s just that I’d had them a few years prior and am currently preoccupied with 35 barreling down on me. I’m sure some readers, being older than 33, are thinking of me the same way. To which I say, shut up, Grandpa.
These things may not seem devastating on the surface, until you remember that they are symbolic of the ceaseless pull of Death. Happy Hump Day, everyone.
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