Old soul (noun) - a person who doesn't quite fit in with their own generation because they'd much rather be living in a different one.

My whole life my mother has called me an "old soul." To some people, this term means being an older person trapped in a younger person's body. But I knew that wasn't why she called me that. She called me that because I've always had an affinity for (for lack of a better word) old things. Not old as in aged. It's not like if I saw an old garbage bin on the street I would be all, "Hey Mom, I love that old garbage bin!" Old as in classic. I like old movies, old music, old clothing styles, old celebrities. It's something that's strange for a nineteen-year-old college student to possess, but it's one of my favorite traits about myself.

I think the reason I am this is "old soul" is because of my father. When I was younger, he would play the music he wanted to listen to around the house which was anything from Dean Martin to The Beatles to The BeeGees. He's also the one I started watching old musicals with. Then, we started watching black-and-white classics, and soon enough, the only TV shows that we would watch together were produced pre-1985. Since this is how I grew up, I found it super strange that only a handful of my friends had heard about M*A*S*H, seen Singin' in the Rain, or knew who Perry Como was. As I moved on to high school, I knew this would be happening more often because my love for the classic culture was growing while everybody else's love for pop culture was also growing.

I've never been embarrassed by this trait of mine. As a matter of fact, I've always been rather proud of it. I was the one who proudly told my government teacher Frank Sinatra when he asked the whole class during a discussion about New Jersey which member of the Rat Pack was born in Hoboken. I was the one who always understood the references to old Saturday Night Live sketches our choir director constantly made in class. I'm the one who instead of looking up to Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus, is idolizing Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. I'm not saying my friends are wrong for liking who and what they like. I'm also not saying I don't like anything that's popular today. I'm simply saying my love for old-timey things outweighs that of my love for modern things and that is what makes me unique. My friends love the fact that I can tell them Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons sang the song in that movie we watched the other day. My dad adores that even though I'm living away from home, I still stop when I see a black-and-white film while flipping through the channels. My love for everything pre-Y2K is merely who I am.

You see, it doesn't bother me in the slightest that I would rather listen to Doo-Wop than Fetty Wap or that I'd rather watch Hogan's Heroes than Grey's Anatomy. I genuinely enjoy liking the old things. It almost feels like I play a part in preserving them. And I like the fact that I'm one of the few millennials who knows about and cares so much about these things because if everybody did, it wouldn't make them that special. If I had the opportunity to go back in time and experience a sock hop, Woodstock, or a date only costing a little over two dollars, I would do it in a heartbeat.