Strength to be Old and Cool

I was recently looking through the Abbeville Meridional and saw an advertisement wishing a young man named, Chad, a happy birthday. There were two pictures of him, one as a Little League baseball player and the other as a high school graduate. The caption above his youthful images read, “Lordy, Lordy. Look who’s 40!”

I was a teenager the first time I heard that expression, and remember thinking, “Wow. That is so old that it’s funny. Why would anyone let that happen?”

Now that I am forty, the age doesn’t seem that old or funny. But with teenagers looking younger and younger everyday, and my lower back feeling older and older, I sometimes forget that half of my life has yet to be lived. So where do we find the energy and youth to handle arthritis, hair loss and a new generation who thinks they’re cooler than us? Where do we find the strength?

Being the youngest of eight children, I always thought I was cooler than my siblings. I listened to CD’s instead of 8-track tapes, watched MTV instead of American Bandstand and wore parachute pants instead of bell-bottoms.

I thought I would always be the youngest in my family. But then my brothers and sisters started having children. At first I reveled in the fact that I was no longer the baby, and might be promoted from the kids’ table to the grown up one. After a while, however, this new generation alarmed me because they had cooler clothes, better skin and more energy and confidence than me.

I was able to prevent the new mavericks of cool from affecting me too much by avoiding being within five feet of more than three of them at a time. But a couple of months ago at a high school graduation party for a niece and nephew, an army of youth surrounded me.

The new graduates and their friends had the confidence of an astronaut who had not only walked on the moon, but also lunched weekly with Drew Brees, Johnny Depp and Lady Ga Ga. Rightly so, because they’d just completed a huge phase in their lives and had a bright and prosperous future ahead of them. I admired their ambition and positive outlook on life, but also feared that they’d discover I wasn’t as cool as them.

At several points in the evening, I found myself surrounded by more than three of them, and took a step away because I had no idea what to talk to them about. They were the young in-crowd, and I was a forty-year old who knew none of the songs from the movie, “High School Musical.” I would have looked like an idiot if a sing-a-long had broken out.

To make myself feel better, I stood by the oldest person I could find, (my mom) and gave her a lecture on why orthopedic shoes were NOT cool. Every now and then, I shot the graduates a dirty look to ensure they kept their youthful skin, hairlines and perspectives away from my insecurities.

A few days later, my niece pleasantly surprised me by asking my opinion about certain aspects of college. I told her about my experiences not only during my collegiate years, but how my decisions affected me later on in life.

I don’t know if my niece will follow my advice, but it did mean a lot to me that she asked for it. For those few moments we spoke, I wasn’t someone old and un-cool. Instead, I was an elder with wisdom who had learned from mistakes and knew things that couldn’t be taught from books or by young Hollywood stars like Zac Efron.

As each day passes, I find larger piles of hair in the shower drain and it’s a little bit harder to get up from a sitting position. The newest and coolest sneakers make my feet hurt and my eyes require brighter light in order to read. Technology confuses me more and more, and the music of the hottest and most popular singer gives me a headache and somehow makes me constipated.

But as each day passes, I add more experiences under my belt. They help me live the next day, and the next and the next. We are all getting older, but a few gray hairs don’t mean that we have to stop enjoying life. With our wisdom, there is coolness. With our age, there is strength.