Perspective

I made a reference yesterday to watching a live OMD concert on YouTube, and how those guys were "old" now. I guess in my mind I still see them the way I saw them in my youth, when they were in their 20s and I was a little kid still in single digits. They seemed grown up, and I suppose event then they were "old" in comparison to me. And my mind's eye still visualizes them looking just like that today.

But they're not. They're old. Relatively speaking, of course. Everything is relative in regards to age, which is simply a function of the passage of time. And boy, a lot of time has passed. But I have to say, they've still got it. And oddly enough, they still sound vert much like they did...40 years ago. And what a life they must have had! Pop icons decades ago, to a different generation. Making music ever since, and still going strong with their own cult following. 

When I first started at Sac State, as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed freshman of 18 years, I would occasionally hear some of the "older" professors mention how they had been teaching there since the early 70s. To which I replied of course that I was not even born yet. Imagine that! That was back in the fall of 1993, to put a number on it. And now of course, today's freshmen were born around 2002 or so. I can now say to them that I've been working there since 1999, since the last century. And they can tell me that they weren't even born yet. The tables have turned! Now I'm the "old" one. 

Funny, I don't see myself as particularly old. But I am, I am. Relatively speaking of course. I certainly don't see myself as being as old now as those professors were in 1993. But you can tell I'm old. You can tell by all the grey hair. The hair that I still pretend is a lovely golden brown. And it is, in my imagination. And when did this happen? When did I get old? And where did all these years of youthfulness go??

So much happens in the passage of time. Yet looking back on it, it seems like it passed in the blink of an eye. Thank goodness for digital photography, so we now have mounds of photos at our fingertips to prove that we actually did stuff. That we existed. 

And I'm reminded now of my mathematical calculations, that have informed me that I will be 57 when my son graduates high school. 57! It's just a number, of course. But why is it such a high number! I could almost cry. 

I hope people at the ceremony don't assume that I'm his grandfather.

Well, I suppose in the grand scheme of things I'm just somewhere in the middle of it all. There's people younger out there. There's older people out there. They're all comparing themselves to others, who to them are "young" or "old". And, like me, they probably all see themselves as some other number than what the passage of time tells. I'll just go with what my gut tells me. With what I feel I am.

I'm 27. Why not? It's just a matter of perspective.