I am 32-years old. I am not young anymore (damn it). I am not old (but time does seem to be going a lot faster then it used to). I am just an adult. So logically I know I am not old but there is nothing like working with high school kids and college students to remind you, "Wow, I am really not young anymore!" Hopefully, I'm like a fine wine--just getting better with age. Anyway, here are a few of the things that have made me feel really old! Any of these sound familiar?
1. cell phones-It seems to me that if you are in college the cell phone is really just an exension of your body. It's like another limb. Everyone under the age of 24 must have their cell phone with them at all times (Although to be fair I know a few people in their 30s like this too). I admit that I don't leave the house without my cell but I also don't have to carry it with me at all times and when I go to work I leave it upstairs in the breakroom. It seems to me that you could some how manage to be separated from your cell while you're at work (especially if you're only working a 4 hour shift). I know work is boring but all these kids sit there and text nonstop. Back when I was in high school (wow--did I really just start a sentence like that?) I probably could have counted on one hand the number of high school kids who had cell phones (well maybe that's a slight exaggeration) but no one I know brought them to work and if they did no one actually used them while they were at work. And we didn't have smart phones, iphones with apps to download and text messages to send. I had a huge black flip phone that I was aloud to use in case my car broke down on the side of the road.
2. The drivers license-Now, as you know if you saw my blog from a few days ago I recently had my own "traffic incident" with the police but Charlie got pulled over for being a minor driving after 11:00 p.m. He has a junior drivers license, issued to anyone under 18, and a curfew that is legally imposed by the state. That's how young he is--the state has given him a bed time and if he stays out too late the police pull him over, give him a ticket and send him home. It got me to thinking, "holy shit I have not been a minor in 15 years! Also, there is a girl I work with named Allison and she just turned 16 and just got her driver's license. She was talking about how nervous she was when she took her test, her new car and how she got to drive to school. Talk about an age difference! Just to put things in perspective here-when I got my license Allsion was just about 1 year old. As an interesting side note to this--Allison drove her car for about a week and got into a car accident.
3. Pop culture references-It makes me feel old talking to Allison because she just turned 16 and she has no idea who Harrison Ford is. Seriously?!? There were a few of us standing around talking about movies or actors or something and I said something about Harrison Ford. She got this blank look on her face and said, "Who?" For a minute I really thought she was messing with me! Ummm--Harrison Ford!?! Who has been in some of the biggest movies (and trilogies)of the past 30 years! Indian Jones? Hans Solo in Star Wars? Nope--she had never heard of him! I couldn't believe it. And she was missing out because he used to be hot! (Do kids still say hot to describe someone?) It would be sort of like me saying I had never heard of Elvis or Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor. These people may have been a bit "before my time" but I am certainly aware of who they are and some of their work.
4. That these kids can't legally by alcohol or cigarettes. Do I need to say much more about this one? Some of them can not legally can't even walk into a liquor store without being accompanied by an adult. If I wanted to hang out with any of them I couldn't just say hey do you want to grab a drink after work.
5. Watching some of the kids I work with who are seniors in high school graduate and get ready to go to college always makes me feel a little old and nostalgic. I think graduating from high school is a really exciting time. You start to feel like you're not a kid anymore and many high school seniors are getting ready to leave home and go out on their own for the first time. It's also always to cool to see them when they come back for winter break and to hear how much fun they're having in college. I don't mean this in a condescending way at all but I sort of feel like patting them on the head and saying, "Aww I remember when you were just a kid in high school and now you're all grown up." But that would probably make them hate me just a little bit and it's not something they would fully understand until they were in their 30s anyway.
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