Goodbye Youth, Hello Mid-Life

You can fight it, you can deny it... but in the end you can't lie to your body.

This past Friday a group of students went to the 6 pack field to play a game of Manhunt. For those unfamiliar with the game, it's pretty much hide-and-seek and tag combined.

Now, I'm not going to brag, but I've always been pretty fast.

As a kid playing soccer, coaches would always put me at striker or forward because I would always be able to chase down long balls ahead of the other defenders. I didn't really need to develop actual skills like dribbling or passing because I could rely on my speed to get by. Likewise with other sports, I could always get by on my above-average athleticism without actually learning or honing skills in those respective sports.

Playing Manhunt confirmed the aging process in my body. I could no longer keep up with the freshmen in a flat out sprint anymore. The only thing I could do was team up with younger teammates and organize the traps we set out for the other team. You always hear about this happening with professional athletes. When they are young and in their prime, they are unpolished and typically able to do well on sheer talent itself. However when they start losing a step, they go into a renewed fervor in relearning and honing the techniques as well as incorporating their experiences to play smarter.

I've finally reached that turning point in my life where I realize I need to play according to my age... diving catches and the like are now, unfortunately, a thing of the past. It's a sad day indeed.

Feeling Old and Outdated

It's hard to really pinpoint the first time you start feeling old. One of the first warning signs starts flashing when your body takes an extra day or two longer to recover from an afternoon of sports. That warning light gets a little bit brighter when your same body can't do what you swore you could do a year ago.

Even if you're able to ignore the physical effects of getting older, it's a lot harder to deny the glaring signs when you interact with students 5-6 years younger than you. Case in point: I recently went to a free Swing Dance lesson on UT campus. Each time I met a new partner, we would exchange pleasantries and we would start asking questions as we practiced the moves.

"So what year are you?"
Ummm, I just recently graduated actually. I'm workin in the area.

"Oh that's cool, how old are you?"
How old do I look? (hoping desperately to switch subjects)

"Oh I don't know... 21?"
*nervous laughter* yeah that's pretty close. imactuallytwentyfive. Have you figured out what you wanted to study?

*uncomfortable look* Yeahhh... I'm thinking about X....

Most of the time when I meet undergrads and they find out how old I am, they always go, "Wow! You look like you're 18! I never would have guessed!" I guess that's a compliment, but it still feels weird when you realize they were just born in the late 1990s when Ace Ventura was funny.

Even things I used to hang my hat upon are no longer cutting edge. I recently saw all the videos that the Ann Arbor Undergrad Lifegroups made and wow... they are amazing. They were incredibly well planned, well shot, and well edited. Everything about them put my creations to shame.

It's a depressing feeling when you are no longer able to hang with the next generation, especially in something you used to take pride in. Maybe that's why old people always talk about "becoming mature". It gives them an excuse for not getting owned in the things they used to do all the time.