Saturday, May 9, 2015

An Ode to Oldness

Once upon a time there was a very young 22-year-old girl who started a job--and a career--as a 9-1-1 operator/police dispatcher. Within just a few years she was a supervisor, and her technical aptitude was, well, not necessarily legendary, but people thought she was pretty cool.  She was called "whiz kid" more than once. 

Fast forward a few.. okay, almost 20, years and this "girl" is in a new job, totally different field, and is doing pretty well at it. She has technical aptitude for this job too. The problem is, no one thinks it's that big of a deal. No one has ever called her a whiz kid. This is for a very good reason--she's older than 90 percent of the other employees, including her superiors. 

The problem is, she still sees herself as a 26-year-old. 

This, sadly, is no fairy tale. It's reality, and it's my reality. I get sad when I look in the mirror and realize that I, unfortunately, am OLD. What's worse, I see the people around me who were 26 when I was 26, and they still look 26. My best friend from college posted a picture, and it could have been taken in the dorms. She looks great. I don't look great. I look tired, and there's a weird wrinkle between my eyebrows that comes from glaring at my children glaring at the sun and glaring at a computer screen. My back hurts--all the time, and I find myself wanting to nap instead of watch a movie--or worse, napping during the movie and annoying everyone by waking up asking what's going on 2/3 of the way through. 

But, I'm only 26. 

Then, my son goes and asks a girl to prom. His first date. (It was "Cops and Robbers" day for Spirit Week. He had the cute idea to dress like a cop and give his friend donuts that say "Go to prom with me". That's why he looks like a police recruit here)
They let 8-year-old boys go to prom now, apparently. Oh. Wait. Crap. I'm old.

My niece, who should by all rights only be 6 years old, is graduating from high school in a few weeks. She was terrible enough to send me a graduation announcement. 

Yes. I'm old. 

I'm going to go take a nap.

1 comment:

  1. My grandmother would always say we never think of ourselves as being as old as we are and when we do we will become old and she was right, Tim thinks of himself as a middle aged man fast approaching old man and that is how he is, I still think of myself as being in my 20's and so don't feel old or middle aged I am 52

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