Hey everyone! An old man is talking!
In seven days, I will be 50 years-old. This is … weird. I do not feel the way I expected I would feel when I was approaching 50, nor do any of my friends. The only time I feel like I’m middle-aged is when my body does some bullshit that takes me down for hours because I had the nerve to stand up quickly. And I really hate it when I have to use the flashlight on my phone to see a menu. I mean, at that point, I may as well be dropping my pants for free and singing the Old Gray Mare.
Anyway. This has been on my mind for a little bit, so I had something to say when someone used my tumblr ask me thingy earlier this week:
Q: I hope I’m as cool as you when I’m 49. I’d like to think I’m taking the right steps towards that version of myself.
A: So I’m not sure I’m cool, but I do know that I don’t suck, and that it’s a choice I make every day.
I desperately wish someone in my family had told me, or shown me by example, that getting older doesn’t mean getting stupid and boring and stuffy and extremely uncool. I wish I’d known that, because I spent all of my life until I was in my 40s feeling like there was this day coming very soon when I would have to stop listening to punk, stop playing video games, put on a suit, and start yelling at kids for no good reason. I didn’t know that you don’t have to suddenly stop being who you are and become something or someone you hate, just because of a certain age. I know that’s super obvious, but to young me, it was not. My dad was an asshole, my mom never showed up for me. Directors and people on set had been treating me like a thing for my entire life. I got yelled at for no reason from adults who knew better almost every day. Most of my elementary school teachers were authoritarian, evangelical assholes. All of these different adults, consistently, shut me down and made me feel like I didn’t matter, the things I liked were stupid, and my opinions were invalid because of reasons I didn’t understand because I was a dumb kid. So I presumed that when you got to be a certain age, that’s what happened. I didn’t want to be that, at all, and I was sincerely afraid of the day it would happen.
But as I got older, I discovered that all that stuff I hated about adults doesn’t automatically happen. Those adults I just mentioned all made a choice to be an asshole. I just didn’t know it. I was in my early 20s when I did a movie with a cinematographer who was, I think, 45 at the time. He was the coolest, kindest, most artistic dude I’d ever known. He mentored me and we had epic fun making great art together. I remember telling him, “I’m not afraid of being in my 40s like I used to be. I didn’t know you could still be cool.”
It’s sad, that I grew up in such a toxic environment, and didn’t know any of these things.
So, 9 days before I turn 50, here are a couple things I have figured out: You know who sucks when they hit 49 and 50? People who sucked when they were 20 and never grew up. You know who is an asshole at 49 and 50? Yep. Someone who was an asshole as a kid and never experienced consequences for being an asshole.
Hitting middle age has been awesome for me. Other than the aging of my body and its reluctance / refusal to do what I want it to do, I love everything about it. I wish I hadn’t spent so much of my life being afraid that, when I hit 50, it was all over. Because honestly it’s kind of just starting. The coolest stuff in my life to date has all happened in the last ten years, and I’m so grateful that it coincided with me figuring out a lot of shit so I could enjoy it.
The best part of getting older, by several thousand light years, is the part where we figure out how to stop putting up with other people’s bullshit, and we contract our social circle until it’s only populated with a VERY few people who deserve us. And I am incredibly grateful for these occasional opportunities to be a 49 year-old dad who can say all the things that would have been reassuring for 19 year-old me to hear (he wouldn’t have understood, but 29 year-old me would have remembered, and he would have understood. I think.) I sincerely hope someone hears it and finds it helpful.
Anyway, you’re gonna be fine. Just remember that being cool, kind, honest, honorable, reliable, listening and showing up … they are all choices. If you want to be cool when you’re 49, make the choice and set the example for someone to follow you.
Treat kids the way you wanted to be treated when you were young. Listen to them when they offer you the privilege, because that means they trust you, and you have credibility with them. Be a mentor. Be supportive. Show up. Make a choice to be the person you need in the world, and never stop being that person. Start today, and when you’re nearing 50 like I am, hopefully you’ll remember who you needed right now, so you can be that person to someone else in the future. You’re already asking the right questions and taking the first steps. I believe in you. You’ve got this.
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I turned 50 in October of last year. Everyone who raised me from my family and teachers was wonderful. Unlike you, I feel like someone turned a key in my mind... Like Matt Damon to Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar. I miss my old body, my energy. Writing helps me a lot... But in Argentina the economy always exhausts the desire to continue... and enjoy life.
It's a matter of perspective. Turning 50 didn't bother me. Turning 40 didn't bother me. Turning 30, however, was horrible. Why? I had set some life goals for "by the time I'm 30." I didn't meet all of them. I have now, but it wasn't because of the emotional duress I was inflicting on me. It was because my priorities had changed after having kids.
This is going to be a bit odd, but true: nearly 6 years ago, my father died. About a month afterwards, I was in the confessional (yes, a practicing Catholic) and this older priest interrupts me to ask if I'd ever read the "7 habits of highly effective people?" When I told him that I had not, he suggested that I read it - but VERY slowly. Take my time and chew it up... let it settle with me. Then - as if a light switch had been turned off, he went back to where we'd left off...I asked my pastor who told me that the priest in question is considered to be a savant of sorts. And that he would have spells like this every now and again. But they were always correct...
So I purchased the book - and the workbook... and the "8th habit" which I haven't even read yet! And I took my time. I meditated, journalled, prayed... the 1st 4 chapters alone are about writing a mission statement... but it's supposed to be different when you are older. Instead of actually writing about goals, you are writing about those things that make you work properly, that you want to refine, if that makes sense.
I spent over a year - nearly 14 months - on just those 4 chapters and writing that Mission Statement. I then put it down for a couple of months. I then picked it up and reread the chapters and went through the workbook, but by now I was good. I think I changed 2 words... altogether about 18 months....
I now have a mission statement that I think defines me. Something I might even use in an obituary; it defines my character - or at least, the character that I want to be known for. It also defines the "loves" of my life. And while it doesn't note "Star Trek", I think that many of the themes found in the various series resound within my statement - my exploration of the world, the foods, the cultures, the people.
I can tell you this. I don't think my father would have understood. He left me a letter when he died. I cannot remember him ever saying that he loved me and the letter was no different. He spoke of our family and our relationship as an experiment.
You like to read... get the "7 Habits" and take your time with it. And then go for it. I have mine posted in 3 places in my apartment and a copy here at work. My final line: "to be so dangerous as to risk to Love."
Life is an adventure. The older we get, the more we are able to understand the adventure and know the journey.
Wonderful post, Im about to turn 40 in December.
Just wait until it's time to file for Medicare. 50 will feel really young then.
I joked with my brother who is 15 months younger than me, asking him when he turned 70 if he was "elderly" yet. At 74 now and with my dear wife of over 40 years in an astonishingly good (Montessori!) memory care facility, I'm kind of surprised at how NOT upset and angry I am. I even spent time with a counselor thinking that surely I should be depressed. But... I'm not.
Hint: Never watching TV news (and reading long-form articles instead) helps a lot!
Thanks for that, Wil. I'm looking at 70 in a few years and mentally am still in my 30s. Think I'll stay there. Don't want to be a grumpy old woman. Not worth it. So I'm gonna hang with the kids and maybe encourage them at the same time.
