My Dad had a brass key chain with the words “Age is a matter of feeling, not years” engraved on it.
This saying is along the lines of “You’re only as old as you feel” or “I’m young at heart” or “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” Just making sure you were paying attention.
But this all got me thinking, someone’s got to be able to win a land war in Asia. After exhaustive research that got me nowhere, I gave up and went back to the age conundrum. Is it true? Are you only as old as you feel?
There are definitely times when I feel 7, but other points in my life I feel older, like, say, 80.
For example, when I’m pulling the pony tail of the girl I like, throwing sand at her in the sandbox or coloring, I’m leaning closer to 7. By the way, am I the only 26-year old man with a Crayola 64 pack in my top right hand desk drawer? Is that wrong?
For something closer to the 80 end of the spectrum, as I write this, I’m still recovering from the exercising I did many days ago. I swam very, VERY few laps. And I used to be a swimmer. Nonetheless, I’m now worn out and sore. Additionally, my body is being crippled by an undetermined illness that involves coughing up a lung every few minutes and sleeping approximately 0 hours each night. I’m either allergic to chlorine or exercise. I think it’s the latter.
Onto a series of rhetorical questions:
What if you’re 18, but feel 22. Should you be allowed to drink?
Or say you’re 15, but feel 9. Can you get the children’s discount at a movie theater?
And, really, do we ever feel the age we actually are?
I’m 26. What’s that supposed to feel like? I think we can really only get a feeling about ages at the extremes. 7 we’ve done, and we know what it’s like to not understand what responsibility is, to be entertained for hours by running in circles or to watch cartoons on a Saturday morning. When feeling 80, we’re more imagining what will be. Wearing brown pants hiked up to our nipples, driving slow and beginning sentences with phrases like “In my day…”
Anyways, I have no answers to these existential questions. I just know that today, as I laze on my couch watching bad MTV shows, I’m getting a generally mid-teens vibe.
Since T.J. Monkey’s didn’t exist until my early 20’s, I’m not sure how I’m posting this Thought to the Internet, nor can I possibly comprehend how you’re reading it.
I just blew my mind…