Acting my age

By Dale Conour

I am 45 years old.

My 19-year-old son recently gave me a hard time for using "totally" in a sentence, like I was being some old guy trying to act like a cool young guy. I thought about it, and realized I totally use totally all the time, and also have to confess to "jonesing" for sundry items over the past few years, which isn’t exactly the latest phrase to hit pop culture, but definitely didn’t originate in my generation—either the last straggling Boomers or the pioneering Gen Xers, depending on whose definition you use.

It got me thinking about age, about being young versus being old. And if I’m in some kind of denial about getting older? I mean, I am, cliché of clichés, remarried to a younger woman. (I do not, however, have a sports car; in fact, I am totally not even jonesing for a sports car.)

And I’m often told I seem 10 years younger than I am.

I have a 16-year-old son to go with that 19-year-old, and when I tell people this they’re often surprised, and suggest that I hail from some trailer in the backwoods of Virginia. (With apologies to all you backwoods people of Virginia—I’m just, you know, reporting here.) And get this: I’ve been carded several times in ’08.

Wouldn’t all this go to my head?

Let’s dig into this more. There are a few reasons I think people assume I’m younger, one more obvious than the other.

One has to be, of course, that I must look younger—nothing like a shaved head to take care of the gray hairs, and I’ve so far avoided the white sneakers, high-waisted jeans and tucked-in polos that make up the uniform of the dad-of-a-certain-age.

There’s the arrested development factor. I often act, and think, like I’m still 12 and reading comics up in my favorite tree. Truth be told, I am currently writing book two of a script for a three-part "graphic novel" (not a comic book, darn it) and frankly, if I had a tree, I’d be writing it up there.

But the more interesting reason, I think, is my approach to life.

If it’s new I’m interested. My sons and I routinely share new music. I recently spent several minutes explaining to two skeptical women a good deal younger than me what Twitter was, and why it was, well, kinda cool in a tapping-into-the-world-hum kind of way.

So have I set myself up as some poor goofball with a Peter Pan complex?

But look, here’s the funny part: I’m not really a big fan of Youth, and the glorification of it is one cultural Kool-Aid I haven’t downed yet.

Do I miss the physical benefits of being 25? Sometimes, but would I take back that vertical leap and miracle metabolism if it meant I had to be a dumbshit again? Not even tempting. We’re not championing what can be the benefits of aging—maturity, experience, thoughtfulness, wisdom.

Okay, emerson’s trusty generalization alarm is going off, so it’s time to be smart about all this. Really, young and old are relative concepts. I’ve met "young" people who were old, "old" people who were young. I’ve encountered young people sitting around waiting to get old.

I mean, Christ, the Ellen Page-Barbara Walters interview is on the TV in the background right now, and who comes off as the wise, soulful woman with great emotional depth? (And which one has had every last wrinkle magically brushed away in her photo?)

One of my favorite quotes ever is from some really "old" guy who was being interviewed because he was spotted roller skating:

"People tell me I should I act my age; but I don’t even know what that means."

We need to marry the positive energy and the fresh creative look at challenges that youth represents with the mindfulness, centeredness and perspective of experience that age can reward us with.

Let’s embrace the new without ever forgetting that nothing’s ever totally new, and maybe we’ll learn how to allow this world to be the better place it’s meant to be.

Hmmm—am I griping?

Maybe I am getting old...

Let’s stay in touch.