no longer younger

Michael Scott: "I, um, thought about getting a tattoo on my back as well at one point. I was thinking about getting Back to the Future. Back, because it's on my back; and future because I'm the kind of guy who likes to look ahead, into the future. I just think a tattoo should mean something, you know? And it's my second favorite movie."
Woman: "I've never heard of that movie."
Michael Scott: "Back to the Future? Oh! Wow! Well you should take a film education course."
Woman: "How old are you?"
Michael Scott: "Forty—I—I'm in my forties"
Woman: "Wow... that's so cool. Well, I'm going to go back to my group now. Thanks for the drink."

I am careful about talking too much about getting older on this site because I doubt I will get too much sympathy. Believe it or not, I also don't usually want to make other people feel old. Some may doubt this because I do tease some friends about their age. My estimation is that about 90% of the people who read this site are older than I am, so I do need to be cognizant of my relative youth.

A few things have caused me to think about age recently. First, I watched the above referenced episode of The Office. Michael ends up flirting with a woman about half his age, and it painfully shows. I could relate more to Michael than to the woman with whom he was speaking. That was an eye opener.

Second, Golden told me this past weekend about a conversation about movies she had with her hair stylist. They were talking about movies and Golden had mentioned that she liked the original Indiana Jones movies, but the stylist didn't really respond to that with too much interest. Golden told me that her stylist may not have been old enough to remember the movies. I started to mention that this was impossible because the last one came out in 1989 when I realized that this was nineteen years ago.

Third, I have been thinking about the fact that I am no longer the youngest person or even almost the youngest person in my office. My first few jobs out of school I was far and away the youngest in my group or office. In one job, it was noteworthy when someone was hired who was younger than me, but since he had skipped college he was the exception. Even in my current job I was the youngest person in the office when I started. Now, even some people who have a reasonable amount of seniority are years younger than I am. It sunk in that I will no longer be the young guy around the office not long ago when a couple of the guys admitted that they didn't know who Pete Rose was.

Not by a long shot am I starting to feel old yet. I won't for years. I am starting to feel like I am no longer the resident spring chicken wherever I go, though. It's a transition that I still need to get used to.