Why I feel old: the songs I used to listen to are on the Oldie’s station, the Pluto I knew erased from science books, the television shows I’d tape on the VCR discontinued, the slang I so liberally tossed around replaced by Internet memes, the actors I mimicked in rehab. I talk about Reagan’s funeral the way my father talks about Kennedy’s. His anecdotes revolve around the Bee Gee’s, the USSR and Nelson Mandela, mine around Smash Mouth, the 2004 tsunami and Al Gore. I’ve adopted the pretentious, commanding tone of a grandmother confined to a particularly comfortable stuffed chair.
It’s not so bad, being young/old. Youngishly old? Oldly young? Sure, I can’t quite get Alex to knit me an afghan or make me oatmeal, and nor can I insist he put his stuff on the lower shelves of the hall closet because I’m too old to bend down, but there’s a great amount of satisfaction in preaching about THE GOOD OLD DAYS. I feel like something out of an 80’s sitcom, and it is not a bad feeling.
I have decided I will not be a lovable old person. I will yell at kids to get off my lawn, I will own several fat cats. I will fill the block with my renditions of progressive rock songs.
No, I may not be a lovable old person, but I will be a happy one. Even the bad old days become good in their re-telling.
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