Why I'm Glad I'm Old

Happy Birthday to Me - blurgh

I turned 40 four months ago.  I hated it.  Yes, my husband posted pictures of me dancing in a happy birthday hat in a Mexican restaurant, but inside, I was miserable.  To make matters worse, I was practicing being 40 for about six months before I actually turned 40.  When the subject of age would come up, I’d say, “I’m almost 40 and…”  Unfortunately, I’ve trained myself to always say that, so now I say, “I’m almost 40… crap, I am 40.”

However, over the past several months, I’ve been getting used to my new decade of life.  Then I got one of those stupid “When I was your age…” e-mails today.  You know the ones.  The adults tell kids how easy they have it.  “We didn’t have call waiting; we got a busy signal… blah blah blah.”  Really all it does is remind you that you’re an old fart.

And them I'm going to tell him I only had an Atari and the only game I had was Pong.

I really don’t see the point of these soliloquies by, what I assume is a bitter middle-aged individual who is screaming at kids to TURN DOWN THAT MUSIC.  I fully admit that when I was a teenager, I thought most adults were full of crap and was an insufferable know-it-all.  Had I received a two-page essay on how easy I had it, I would probably have used it to set something on fire out of my contempt for authority.  Contempt which still exists but is now slightly more in check. 

Slightly.

I'm going to buy you everything and then
moan about how easy you have it.

Maybe I’d feel differently if I had children, but after listening to a child scream in Target until they were actually purple (this is no exaggeration and this demon-spawn child was actually purple), my life choices have been confirmed and there will be no babies invading the sanctity of my uterus.  Even more importantly, I’m actually GLAD I didn’t have access to the technology the children of today have.

Well except for DVRs.  That would have come in very handy since taping your shows on the VCR depended on (a) the planets being aligned just right in order for it turn on the VCR and be set to the right channels on both the VCR and television, and (b) not have an idiot sibling decide that your show wasn’t worth recording and turn it off.

But the other stuff, yeah, I’m glad I didn’t have it.

Take cell phones...  When I left the house, there was no way for my parents to reach me.  It was fabulous.  I dictated when I would talk to them next.  Sure I could get yelled at for not checking in before the 8-hour mark, but I always had the perfect excuse – I wasn’t near a phone.  Now your mom will call you every 2 minutes until you pick up and if it goes right to voicemail on her… you’re most certainly getting grounded when you arrive home because she knows you saw she was calling and “ignored” the call.

"Hey look, it's mom calling again" is NOT what she's thinking.

However, I think the biggest thing I’m grateful for NOT having when I was a teenager, or even a young adult, was social media.

The stupid things I did as a teen/young twenty-something will be buried with me.  There is no photographic/video evidence for husbands, employers or in-laws to inspect.  The time I drank enough at a Bears game that I vomited in Soldier Field’s parking lot?  Yeah, people only know about that if they were there or if I tell them. 

Go Bears.

Of course, there’s more than just proof of things that could cause an employer to not give you a job or for you to get grounded until the next millennia. I have many friends with children that are also on my friends list or twitter followers.  As you get older, you learn how to filter what you’re thinking.  Kids/teens do not have this filter and they’ll type every emotion out as they have them.  Sometimes I feel like I’m watching Sybil. 

Here’s an example I’ve seen of a teen’s posts over about 1 hour time:

• “Gonna party tonight!”
• “I hate my life.”
• “My life is so good, I hope nothing ever changes.”
• {random quotes from Green Day’s “Time of Your Life”}
• “No one understands me.  I could run away and no one would care.”
• "I've got the BEST. PARENTS. EVER."
• “I hope he calls me!”
• “I’m never dating again.”
• “No matter what, I’ve always got my girl.”
• “My best friend is the biggest jerk ever.  Why did I trust her?”
• “Life is good… gonna party tonight!”

It’s like they go through The Five States of Grief when their Saturday night plans get cancelled.  And no, this is not a specific example or individual.  If it were, there would be a bunch of “LOLZ” and “OMGs” or wRiTiNg ThAt lOoKs LiKe tHiS.

Side note, when I see people over the age of 13 writing in CAPS eVeRy OtHeR LeTtEr, it makes me bang my head with my keyboard.  I can’t keep replacing keyboards at this rate, so PLEASE STOP THE MADNESS!

Not quite what I do, but close enough.

Side note over… 

I’m so glad I didn’t have the ability to post my thoughts to the world as they were happening real time.  I kept a journal for a while and found it while cleaning out some boxes.  As I read some of the entries, I laughed and then cringed because of the emotions that were behind it.  I eventually set fire to it just to make sure that it would never get picked up and read by accident.

While my feelings were real, I’m just really glad I didn’t say some of that crap out loud.  When you’re 16 and your rival bought the same color prom dress as you, it was the end of the world and you thought you were justified in hating that person forever.  As you get older, you realize how that really isn’t that important in the scheme of life and SANE people don’t stir up crap on the Internet.  But once it is out there, it’s there forever, even if you delete it right away.

I told her I was going to wear purple and then she shows up at
my house ONE WEEK before prom and she's got this purple dress
so I decide to return mine and buy the pink but then she decides
she's also going to wear a headband in the same color pink I'm wearing
and I don't have time to change the dress again and her date is cuter
than mine and I told her the least she could do is find an uglier guy
since she stole my colors and now I'm stuck with this dorky guy wearing a
color that washes me out with a stupid tiara on my head.

And then there’s the love life of a teenager.  Whenever I see a young girl pour her heart out in successive tweets or Facebook posts, I have several reactions.  These reactions change in this order with the more tweets/posts that appear in my feed:

1. “Oh the poor dear.  It sucks having your heart broken.”
2. “I am SO glad I’m not seventeen anymore.”
3. “That poor girl’s mother.”

So to recap… I clearly don’t have the patience to be a parent.  I’ve decided to fully embrace being an old fart and maybe start acting like Carl from UP.  I hope a neighborhood kid comes around and I can send them snipe hunting.  And I’m glad I grew up during the dark ages.

Except for the DVR thing… man that would have been awesome.