Middle Age

What is middle age? I think to myself. One year ago I had a simple answer, 30. Simple enough, 30 from a college student’s perspective embodies all those essential characteristics of one in old age…it’s half of 60, at which point we all decided life was no longer worth living anyways. 30 is when one should be in the midst of a budding career, and should at the precipice of starting a family. From what I’m learning though, 30 has a much closer resemblance to my college escapades than it does one’s proverbial middle age archetype, their parents.

When my elder coworkers go out drinking more than I do; when they descend to more juvenile humor than immediately occurs to me, and when I find myself utterly speechless at the unapologetic vulgarity of these hard to place thirty somethings I’m reminded that I still have much to look forward to. Old enough to have thoughtful and intriguing conversation, young enough to hit on my friends…and their younger sisters, and confident enough to come into work more hung over than a frat boy after homecoming I might very well see this become the prime of my life.

Having only been working for a mere six months I already feel I have more in common with these limbo dwelling souls than I do with some of the peers of my age. We relate in thinking back fondly to our college days, days with similar tastes yet limited responsibility and an abundance of time to “find ourselves” which of course is not what we were doing, but who’s to say that was wrong. Does this mean, I, now a man occupying a full time job, have also hit the dreaded middle age mark? Is it more of a lifestyle than an age? Personally I think it makes more sense to sort our lives through particular relatable themes then vague expressions like “middle age” and “over the hill.” I have pre and post high school, pre and post college, and now first job out of college. There are similar things we learn at each of these posts and not everyone will go through them at the same time or go through them at all, but it is the stage of these events much more than our biological age that shapes us, our lifestyle, and our future.

Am I afraid of middle age? No, because now I know it won’t be forced on me by the ticking of a clock but will come to me only when I’ve let it