My 50th Birthday is in 23 days. My mom is no doubt somewhere thinking “I’m not old enough to have a son who’s FIFTY!” and mom, your kid is definitely thinking “Waitaminute, I’m not old enough to have a ME who’s fifty!!!”
And yet I believe it. My knees reassure me that I might be even OLDER than that.
Believe it or not, though the trappings of age aren’t things I’m particularly enamoured with, I feel like I’m of a fortunate generation. Not just “the best bands”. I missed some pretty amazing ones, and look out of place headbanging along to some of the newer ones…
I’m young enough that new technologies and our fancy phones don’t completely mystify me, yet old enough to not take it for granted. To know we Live in an age of wonder and awe. Terror and catastrophe, certainly, but also old enough to have context for inflation and the threat of global war. It brings, if not a silver lining, then at least a glimmer of hope to the world around me.
And yet it means I’m ALSO old enough to remember when you looked things up in an encyclopedia and knew it was the “right answer”. You couldn’t simply type what you wanted to think into a browser and receive YOUR truth tailored to you complete with narrative, image, and fiery rhetoric. You didn’t have an endless scroll of charismatic, beautiful people showing you how you’re not good enough, or telling you who and what to hate. The horror of Living in a POST-truth world, and what that means for people struggling to understand it sans the context of knowing that once upon a time we had a shared reality… I don’t know how we get through that.
But I guess I’m still young enough that I’ll get to see how it plays out.
(I hope!)
