When did all of my Facebook friends get old and does this mean I’m old too?
Scrolling past my Facebook feed, I suddenly come to a midlife existential epiphany- does this make me old AF and should I be on TikTok instead?
It’s a conflict of heart—do I admit that I am outdated and quickly approaching middle-age at a rate faster than I care to admit or do I attempt to retain a facsimile of my quarter-life status by conforming to what the cool, young folk do? Have millennials suddenly become the butt of our own “Ok boomer,” joke? Have we become what we have always feared most? Old?
I don’t recognize my friends on Facebook anymore. They all have weird last names and little people running amok at their house. Their photo albums have mutated from lying passed out over a trash can into declarations of, “Look at all of the trash we cleaned out of our house today! #BlessThisMess.”
If I want to stay young, must I create an account on the Tikky Tokky, or whatever they call that moving picture application these days, and eat Tide Pods or bio-hack my health by swallowing dry pre-workout powder, and do strange 30-second gyrations to raise awareness for the Black Lives Matter movement? If I do this, then have I become like Kim Kardashian, vowing that I would eat my own feces every day if someone told me that it was the fountain of youth? No… but for real though, Kim actually said that.
I settle for a media application somewhere in between—that vast amalgamation of stationary pictures that is Instagram. I think to myself, “See? You’ve still got it!” There are lots of millennials on here too.
Maybe I’m not quite ready to let go of the younger image of myself. Maybe I can still live like a 20-something into my 30-somethings. I’ve booked a concert for my boyfriend and me tonight. It’s a blues musician he loved named Buddy Guy. This will be my chance to prove that I can, in fact, get my groove back. I can still dance all night, popping Redbull vodkas until the wee hours of the morning just like I used to.
Nevermind the fact that Buddy Guy is almost 84 years old. Or the fact that my boyfriend and I will likely be the youngest concert-goers at the venue. This is my chance to relive the good ol’ days, even if those glory days were never really as great as my mind wants to believe they were.
I get gussied up in the trendiest, ethically sourced clothing I can afford from H&M. It’s wonderful that they’re helping to support the children of Malaysia these days. And it’s also wonderful Gen X’ers have brought back the mom jeans and baggy jeans. I will gladly wear them over the sausage casing that was my skinny jeans.
We arrive at the concert past my bedtime at 9 pm. Oof. This is gonna be hard, but I’m prepared to push past like Notre Dame freshman pledge and 340oz of Pabst Blue Ribbon. After two pre-game gin and tonics, I’m ready to call it lights out. But when we get to the venue, two adorable Canucks begin chatting us up and they’re just too darn cute for me to give up this battle just yet. Plus, as it turns out, their son is one of the dudes from Letterkenny, which I’ve never watched, but still feel compelled as if these people possess some sort of enchanting celebrity powerhold over me.
An hour later the concert starts. I’m drunk enough to feel like dancing in the optimal white person seated position. If I add legs to the mix, then my body movements become a bit too Linda-Blair-coming-backwards-down-the-stairs and people start looking empathetically at me like I’ve got some kind of disability. Though I’m feeling the music, it’s apparent perhaps no one else wants to let on that they are feeling the music too. It’s definitely a strange vibe being in a concert room full of seated Baby Boomers who reluctantly tap to their feet to the music, terrified as though someone might see them. It is blatantly obvious that me and my boyfriend are the only people in the entire hall dancing. So we continue, as if Buddy Guy’s entire validation depends upon our physical enjoyment of his music. Somebody must. Toe taps and hand-to-leg pats just won’t suffice.
I take a brief nap from dancing only to boot and rally, dance a bit more, and retain consciousness by the end of the concert at midnight.
The next morning my head splits into a pounding headache as some kind of cruel penance for my deeds of drinking more than two mixed drinks in one night. While I may not be able to down 8 shots of tequila and go clubbing until 3 am anymore, I’m okay with that fact in a weird, unsettling way. Because in the back of my mind, I know that I can still halfway let loose. I’m not that old just yet. But I’m not that young either. I’ve lived enough life now to have gotten the hang of its ups and downs. I’m far less volatile and emotionally unstable than I was in my youth, but I have enough energy left to do things that won’t destroy me emotionally anymore. Middle age is this weird sweet spot where youth and seniority start to coalesce. One day, I’ll inevitably cross that golden bridge into the land of becoming an old cantankerous fart, but not yet. Until that day comes I’ll enjoy the splendors of my middle agedom. Mimosas, domesticity, hiking, not being hungover all of the time, and grilling with your family poolside aren’t that bad after all. And when it’s my turn to be roasted by the generation beneath me, I’ll sit in silence knowing that one day, one day all too soon their comeuppance will come too.