On April 28th, 2015, I turned 25 years old. A quarter of a century. Two and a half decades. Five years from thirty and on the downhill slide to fifty. That was the first point in my life when I truly felt my mortality. It didn't help that I was still in college at the time. I was the oldest guy in most of my classes and I was way older than most of the members of the UNC Charlotte Drumline (I was the same age as one of the staff members). But even with all of that telling me that I was old, I've never really felt like an adult. When others refer to me as a man, which doesn't happen often, it catches me off guard. Am I really an adult? I mean more so than the fact that I'm over the age of 18. A lot has changed in the almost year and a half since I first started wondering which side of the age line I'm really on.
In many ways, I am definitely a grown up. Just writing that makes me sad. But 2016 has definitely been the year of adult things. I've found the girl that I'm going to marry and we've moved in together. I'm working at my first real job. I finally have a car that I'm not terrified to drive. I've even been to a gender reveal party for my nephew and a couple of infant birthday parties. I'm the working twenty something I feel like I should be. I'm also feeling a new distance from the younger crowd. Working with kids doesn't help. My job keeps me around kids from kindergarten through eighth grade and it never fails to make me feel ancient. Words like "bae" and "lit" drive me insane as well as making me realize just how disconnected with the younger generation. I recently tried giving MTV's Scream reboot a chance. I almost had to stop watching it because one of the characters used "for reals" in a serious manner.The list of things I hate about the younger generation could be it's own article but in short I hate every form of social media other than Facebook (I'm not even a huge fan of that), today's music, the idea of going to clubs but I didn't like that when I was supposed to, selfies, the fact that selfies is now a word recognized in the dictionary, participation trophies, entitlement, and I need to stop listing things before this article completely turns into some old man yelling about pointless things.
But even with me feeling disconnected with younger people, I don't identify with the generation head of me either. I still get excited about getting home at the end of the day and playing video games. I watch professional wrestling at least three nights a week. I'd rather wear superhero t-shirts over dressing nice any day of the week. I'm also incredibly immature. Ask my girlfriend. I fart around her all the time. And I'm in no rush to change. I'm not ready to for marriage and kids. I have no desire to go to an antique show, clip coupons, and get all excited about yard work. I know that eventually I'll get to a point where being a husband (and maybe even a dad) will eventually be something that I want. That's a terrifying thought.
Maybe it's because I got started being an adult later than I should have. A lot of my friends were well into living their post-college lives when I was just moving to Charlotte for school. Maybe it's the fear of change. Paying for everything on my own has definitely become an agonizing time of life. Maybe it's because I'm lazy. Sitting inside, reading, watching movies. Those are things I can handle on a daily basis. Everything else is work. Maybe I'm just a hybrid of young and old. I mean my Sundays consist of watching CBS Sunday Morning and then playing Super Mario World. Whatever the reason, I've found myself at an interesting crossroads. I'm just going to embrace the weirdness of my age and enjoy where I am in life right now.
