My son's birthday is this week.
He is 'middle' aged... a tween. That awkward time where he is no longer a child but not quite old enough to do anything fun. He can't wait until the day he can get a job, drive, and play 'M' rated games. Simple goals that will come all too soon for me.
I'm approaching my 'middle' age as well. In a few months I will hit the big 4-O. I'll be quite honest... I remember a time when I thought thirty was old, forty was ancient, and fifty was dead. Those estimations have been pushed back extensively.
As the years have gone by, we as a nation have changed our ideas of what youth and old age are. Those who used to chant 'don't trust anyone over thirty' are now stating that sixty is the new thirty. Although not aimed at me yet, I am bombarded by ads for any number of pills designed to reverse the tell-tale signs of age. We dye our hair and get implants. We tuck and trim and suck away the accumalation of years. All in a vain attempt to remain forever young.
But the young have just the opposite problem. They are being made to grow up quicker and quicker. Hormones in our livestock carry over into our food supply causing children to reach puberty at an earlier age. I watch in horror at the baby pagents where children as young as two and three are dolled up in revealing outfits and made to sashey down a runway with enough makeup to put Tammy Fae to shame. Reality shows bombard our children with the most sensational and the lowest of the low depictions of human behavior which these kids then emulate.
Why can't we ever be happy with how old we are? Why do we idolize that mythic 'perfect' age? I hope that I can grow old gracefully. I'm in no hurry to go forward, but I'm not seeking a time machine that will return me my wasted youth.
The trick is to enjoy the present and not fret about what will be or what used to be. It's something I have to remember in regards to my son, too. There are days when I wish he was small enough to cuddle. I remember building towns together with Lego's for him to later smash like a pint sized Godzilla. Those days are long gone. Today I have a preteen whose body is changing as quickly as his ideas about the world around him. It's hard not to tell him to grow up when he is acting a little annoying. I only hope that I don't try to hold him back or push him along that path too quickly. Neither of us wants to be old before our time.
Which reminds me of another quote (lucky you...two for the price of one). Bernard M. Baruch said, 'To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am." So I will never reach old age. A-ha, I have found the fountain of youth.
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