I’m Officially Old

I first remember people giving me shit for “getting old” back when I turned 30. Ya know, the big three-oh. Thirty-odd-even. Um, twenty-ten. Yeah. But I didn’t buy it. I still felt young. Shit, this was 1995. I hadn’t even started doing The Wayback Machine yet. Gina and I had only been married for a little over four years. No kids yet. Still working retail. Not many responsibilities. I didn’t even have a website yet. Lots of fun years ahead! “Fuck it,” I said, “it’s just a number. Doesn’t mean anything.” And so it was. I went though my thirties like Grant taking Richmond. No holds barred, baby. Fun, fun, fun. OK, so I admit that I matured a bit midway through when I decided to quit smoking, but aside from that, I was the same guy, still enjoying life’s simple pleasures like booze and live rock’n'roll, still able to go out and see sometimes multiple shows in the same week, even, all the way up until shortly after my 38th birthday when my son was born. THAT was the first major life-altering change. Not bad, I guess, considering I was able to hold that off ’til my late thirties, right? Right. So then, not long after that, I turned 40 and yeah, I was starting to feel older… not quite as energetic and youthful as in the past. More aches, pains, and longer recovery times from drinking too much. But I was still able to hack it. That is, up until November 19, 2008, when I got an email from my high school’s alumni association with news about my class’ upcoming TWENTY-FIFTH reunion, scheduled for next June. What’s that? 25 years?! You’re shittin’ me. It’s been THAT long? A quarter of a century since I fucking GRADUATED from HIGH SCHOOL? Holy fucking shit. OK, that’s it. I’m officially old.

So now I have this dilemma staring at me in the face: to go or not to go? That is the question. I have to admit that I really didn’t like a lot of people in my high school class (Parkway West class of ‘84, in case you’re curious… and if you’re from St. Louis, you probably are), but honestly, who does? And then, too, it was a pretty big class. Hell, I didn’t even KNOW most of them. But looking back at my senior yearbook, there were probably dozens of kids that I got along with pretty well (even more if you count juniors, sophomores and freshmen), and a few fellow seniors that I’d even consider pretty close friends back then. I’ve even gotten back in touch with a few via Myspace, Facebook and plain ol’ email. One of them, Bruce Clayton, was even my college roommate for my first semester at CMSU. So now I’m thinkin’, ya know, if enough of these people that I actually wouldn’t mind hanging out with say they’re going, that I’ll go ahead and make plans. Or at least set the date aside… for now, anyway.