It seems like every day I am reminded of how old I have become. I realize that 47 is still relatively young... but screw relativity. This is about how I feel. In my mind, I am still a cool twenty-something Gen Xer hanging out at clubs until 4:00 AM, acting like an idiot, and drinking Zima... well maybe not drinking Zima but you get the point.
But right now I can't even read a Zima bottle without either holding it at arm's length, taking off my glasses or asking my son "what does that say"? I am now one of those guys looking for an obscenely large phone so that when I blow up the font 1000x I can read more than two letters at a time.
My school recently hired a new crop of teachers who I lovingly refer to as "the kids". They are who I still think I am in my own delusional brain. They are young and act like idiots... and I am so jealous. Things really hit home when one of them told me their dad was 46 years old. I am 47. Can we please pause for a moment of silence for my not so recently deceased youth? Thank you very much.
I can handle that my back hurts every second of every day, I can't see, I have to turn up the TV way beyond 11 to hear it, and people in their 30s now call me "sir", but today I hit a new low.
I have always been quite proud of my internal clock. Because I spent a great deal of my life hanging out to 4 or 5 in the morning, I never really adjusted to "normal" time. Although I fought through my nature in order to avoid being fired from a job that starts at 7:30 AM, I always longed for the summers when I could return to my natural state and sleep as long as I possibly could. This essentially meant until my children woke up raring to go. I even counted that as me wanting to wake up, not having to wake up.
Today I started my summer vacation. It should have been the most glorious day of 2019. I should have been dreaming of clubbing and Zima. I should have been sleeping so deeply that I would need to throw out my pillow due to the copious amounts of drool I would produce. I should have been making up for the 10 months of forced arousal (wait maybe that is the wrong choice of words). Instead, I woke up at 5:35 AM... for no freaking reason. It's two and one half hours later, and my damn kids still aren't awake. Some people get upset when their kids first beat them in basketball. But that is nothing compared to the shame I feel right now. My kids out-slept their old man. It's over.
When I was a kid I would always make fun of my stepfather for waking up at 4:30 AM... for no reason. Now I am him. This is a sad day. The only thing that give me solace is the mantra I have been repeating in my head for the past several years:
"It sucks getting old... but it sure beats the alternative."
