Tell-tale Signs...

[rhythmaning]

I have been thinking about a stream of comments to an earlier post – http://www.livejournal.com/users/rhythmaning/6532.html – which kind of struck a maudlin note. It made me feel – well, old.

So here are signs that you are getting older… or maybe growing up?

You take out a personal pension plan. (Nineteen years ago.)

A parent dies. Not much you can do about this one, it is really out of your hands; but it is a clear, defining moment. Suddenly you are not a child. (Eighteen years ago.)

You buy property and oh my god it is all yours and you wander from room to room, thinking, oh my god, it is all mine… And there is no landlord to come and fix the dripping taps. (Twelve years ago.)

You realise that the graduates you have been working with are half your age. At which point you stop counting. (Three days ago.)

Comments

Well listen to the voice of Bubba...

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the growing up, and I don't know about getting old, either. Friends of mine were grown up at Uni (and yes, I'm thinking of the pair who got engaged when we were still there, and took out there first mortgage and first pension plan the year they graduated). I think claiming to be grown up is a sort of foolish statement, a "But master, how will I know when I am enlightened" sort of thing. If you think you are, you probably aren't. I know I'm not, although I think I was when I was 15.

As for being old... Well, I'm in my fifth decade now. I have books that are older than some of my colleagues. I walked out of a nightclub queue a few weeks ago, after I worked out that the aggregate age of me and my two companions was more than the half dozen or so folks in front of us.

But I've also just watched a Kevin Smith movie, bought an Avengers comic this weekend and worn my San Francisco waistcoat to the company do. I think being old is probably a state of mind, while being 41 is a biological fact.

When my friends and I were in our teens, we talked about cars and girls (to steal Paddy's line)
In our twenties about politics, in our thirties about property. Now, in out forties, we get together and moan about which parts of our bodies are packing up - "I'll see your hernia and raise you late-onset diabetes. But Bill's just married a gorgeous Czech girl, and signed a three book deal in Germany, Mike is trying to extricate himself from his internet marriage to a Moldovan, and me, well, to quote Uncle Warren, "I don't wanna talk about it."

Growning older? Yeah. Growing up? I'll get back to you...

[unblinkered.livejournal.com]

You should make the distinction between "growing up" and being an adult. You can quite easily be the latter without having done the former.

Me? I turned 30 this summer (which I realise makes me a spring chicken to some people, heh), have a pension plan, have savings and a financial advisor to help me invest them, am currently house hunting and will probably be in the posession of a 30 year mortgage and a property soon, etc... All round adult stuff. But deep, deep down? I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up....

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's my problem - I still feel like I'm nineteen - and I don't know what to do when I grow up either!

Train-driver, perhaps...

Re: Well listen to the voice of Bubba...

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

It's true. I spent the weekend watching Buffy DVDs.

But as Paddy says, there's more than just cars and girls. THough of course, we still find them interesting!

As I've just said (below), I still feel like I'm nineteen (but married, with property, and a pension plan...), so I definately agree with you.

By the way, there is a spooky confluence of musical interests. Must be our age!

Re: Well listen to the voice of Bubba...

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Personally, I don't think I've changed much since I was seven.

One of me best mates pointed out that we are all friends in particular places - so hopefully the tastes we share will make up for the fact that I love Tom Waits and don't listen to much jazz! (Waits' "I Don't Want To Grow Up" from Bone Machine is peculiarly apt here...)

Re: Well listen to the voice of Bubba...

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, since reading your comment earlier, the riff from Goodbye Lucille #1 (Johnny Johnny) has been going round my head non-stop. Steve McQueen is a truly great album.

Re: Well listen to the voice of Bubba...

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

And I suppose I AM still in love with Hayley Mills. That was one of my favourite songs of the time. It remains anchored to a Summer job, afternoons skiving in the hospital gardens, and, of course, a highly unsuitable girl.