It feels like just yesterday, I was a kid. Seriously! I was 10 years old, walking across the cafeteria with a full tray in my hands when I tripped over my own feet and ended up on my face to the laughs and general amusement of my peers. It feels like just yesterday that I didn't know how to drive. When I finally learned, I ended up hitting a wall that seemed so much further than it actually was every time I had seen it right in front of my house. It feels like just yesterday, there was a poster of a young Kurt Cobain above my head in my bedroom, with his eyes towards my future.
I don't know what exactly happened or how these past 28 years flew by bringing me love, memories, trips, runs, tests and a daughter. I don't know if I've actually grown older or if my mind is trying to quickly catch up with my body because it doesn't want to be left behind. Although, last time I checked, I was playing a record by Arcade Fire for the first time and now that record is 10 years old.
I really didn't think I would someday be in a room full of 20-year-olds and feel slightly odd. You know precisely what I'm talking about: that kind of feeling you get when you wake up in the morning in a hotel room and it takes you a couple seconds to realize that's not home, so you get a little lost. Eventually, you shake the sleepiness off and you find yourself again, only somewhere different than usual. I never thought I would sense a generational gap, because, last time I checked, I was swimming in that gap and my mom was yelling at me for coming back home too late.
"I guess I'd better get used to it," I tell myself, "It is only going to get worse, after all."
They say youth is a state of mind. If that's true, the moment you decide to leave that state and relocate into adulthood, you lose your golden spot at your life's show. Growing old and grey is a matter of choice, apparently. As you collect experiences and you learn lessons, all you're doing is reinventing yourself into someone older, unless you choose not to, despite the experiences and the life lessons. You could choose to stay young, to look at things with the surprised eyes of a child, to discover new interests or new things within your old interests with the same eagerness you had when you were 17.
That's the reason why I'm now looking for a person who is willing to defeat time and stay young until the end of her days. So, you might think you're the one! If that's the case, please feel free to come forward and speak your mind. Let me know how you manage to stay forever young. I have a resolution for this year and the next 60 to come: I want to plant a permanent tent at this youth gig. As memories accumulate, I want to embrace the future with open arms and I want to be perpetually excited about finding out who is playing next, on my stage.
I was recently catching up with an old friend from high school. I think I hadn't talked to that friend in about 10 years (even though, last time I checked, we were waiting for the next metro together). I couldn't help but laugh and look at what I am now when my old friend went, "You know, these young kids nowadays, the ones who dress like that and act like that, they're called hipsters." I don't think I've ever been perceived as older than that.