I am five days shy of my 72nd birthday and as I listened to the small, informal talk between work colleagues today, all much younger, I felt closer to 172 years old. Not only did I feel like a dinosaur or the original occupant of an ancient Greek ruin but it felt like I didn’t even come from the same planet as my colleagues, even though I’m pretty certain we all came from the same place.
They included one young woman who vaped non-stop and who was young enough to be my granddaughter, and I know that because her mother is old enough to be my daughter.
Two colleagues bantered about their drinking escapades, bragging about varieties and combinations of booze that I haven’t even heard of and talking about drinking so much that they couldn’t remember the night and with this I could identify. But the idea of crowing over the amount of liquor they put inside their bodies seemed so, well, juvenile. Not that I don’t drink altogether too much, at times, but I get nothing out of telling anyone about it, much less feeling proud of it. Don’t get me wrong, I remember those conversations with friends when I was virile and filled with youthful vigor about how inebriated we had gotten and how much fun it was, even though looking back, it wasn’t that enjoyable, at least not if you add in the hangovers when I wished I could stick my head in a bowl of peanut butter and not surface until the evil headache and toxic bile had left me.
Another nubile brown-haired colleague explained her plans for a new business and how excited she was and how she hoped to start slow and methodical and wanted all the advice she could collect and how she hoped to make a million one day, although I didn’t have the heart to tell her that a million isn’t really that much these days. I grew weary just listening, knowing that I wouldn’t have the energy to build a business even if I had an idea of one to build, which I don’t, although there was a period when I considered opening a cafe where there would be jugglers, clowns and high wire walkers. The logistics proved too complicated as I couldn’t find any place big enough to accommodate high wire walkers. I still think it was a good idea for someone who has the youth, vitality and dough to give it a try. But hearing the cross talk really struck a nerve as I thought about how young people don’t consider their mortality, they think they will go on forever while I am all too aware of the time I have left, not that it won’t be quite a few years but just the idea of meditating on my end is something restricted to the older.
If you hear a hint of jealousy in my words, you are hearing right and if you pick up more than a bit of regret you are right about that too. Maudlin as it is, I have many regrets about roads not taken but they lose their bite when I quickly realize that regrets are nothing less than excuses to get in the way of living right now in the best way I can, right now. And anyway, nobody is listening so all things considered, regrets and self-pity aren’t worth the time it takes to feel them, especially when you really don’t have all that much time left.
So I turn these feelings inside out and I look at these young colleagues and know that I now have more wisdom than I ever had and that I am more comfortable in my skin than I ever was and how clear it is that one of the biggest drawbacks of being young is feeling lost and unmoored even if you do have plenty of energy to spend on being confused. I thought of interrupting with a few sage words of advice until I stopped myself and quickly concluded that I didn’t really have much to offer and that it was more eye-opening and fun to listen.
While mostly listening to the commentary and adding a few sparse comments, I couldn’t help but think what these young people thought of me, whether they looked at me as an irrelevant, over the hill, old guy with grey hair and with whom they had little to nothing in common or whether they considered me to be a wise older man who had much great and solemn wisdom to impart. The old irrelevant guy with the grey hair won out.