Acting my age

I was thinking earlier this morning about how I used to always feel younger than my years and how that’s no longer as true as it used to be. As you might guess, I was viewing this development rather negatively at the time. But now that I think about it, maybe it’s a healthy thing–a much needed reality check.

I’m forty-seven years old. That’s not ancient by any definition. It’s not like I’m ready for Medicare or dinner at the cafeteria at 4:45 (unless I’m with my dad) or Wheel of Fortune. Granted, I’m also not an annoying twenty-five-year-old hipster fuck but I think that’s something of a positive. And I wasn’t really an annoying twenty-five-year-old hipster fuck even when I was twenty-five, although I may have been closer than I care to admit.

I’ve obviously been subject to Peter Pan Syndrome in the past; I spent thirteen years in San Francisco, after all. And I’ve fetishized being a curmudgeonly old coot on occasion as well, which is easy to do in Winston-Salem where everyone is an old coot so there are lots of role models. Neither approach seems particularly satisfactory.

I think maybe I’ll just try being forty-seven for a while. It’s a good age, if not one that gets a lot of good press. I’ve reached a certain level of comfort with my surroundings but I’m not willing to settle for the status quo either. I’m past the whole “fashion victim” stage but haven’t reached the point where I no longer care about my appearance. I don’t have to jump on every trend but I also don’t feel that all technology and new ideas are inherently evil. I can’t drink a lot but I don’t want to either. Cute boys don’t leer at me very often but I also don’t care all that much anyway. So how bad can forty-seven really be?

At any rate, it’ll be over in six months when I hit forty-eight. I’ll reassess then.