I consider my age a lot. But probably not how you think. Nearing 50, I still feel like I’m in my mid 20’s in a lot of ways. There’s likely a health aspect to this, but really it’s more mental. Age has sanded the edges down so I’m easier to deal with in a lot of ways and likely a lot nicer, but my mind still spins like a child’s. For this I’m thankful. 

When I say I consider my age a lot, what I mean is I juxtapose against where my parents where at my age. How they must have thought. I mean I can ask my mom but she will always be an adult and I’m not sure we can trust adults (kidding mom). Maybe  what I mean is that somewhere along the way I missed the chapter on growing up. For that I am thankful. 

The other day I saw a belt.  Black leather, with hundreds of embossed lightning bolts on it. I bought it immediately. 11 year old me drew lightning bolts all over his Trapper Keeper. 49 year old me still does. 49 year old me thought. A little lightning bolt would be a cool tattoo. Then I googled it or something and found out that’s also what Nazis tattooed on themselves and I decided I’d let that urge slide. Stupid Nazis ruin everything. 

My point about the belt is that the week after I bought it I saw a bunch of guys my age out and about downtown, dressed as lawyers or something. I thought, “I wonder if they have lightning bolt belts.”  Followed by “zero point zero chance, and that sucks for them. It means they are too grown up.”  Purely judge mental on my part. They could be holed up in their offices building legos all day for all I know. I just assume that lawyer looking guy is older than me and an adult. Meanwhile I’m walking around singing pop punk songs out loud, forgetting I have headphones in. 

There isn’t much of a greater point here other than that I think about these things a lot. I sometimes even default to “you’re getting older, maybe you shouldn’t traipse around in a speedo as much.”  This is dumb. Age shouldn’t equate to conservativeness. Especially if we don’t think that way. 

Yesterday I pulled into a parking lot and saw a young girl, maybe 6, opening the door to the car, all smiles and full of joy. I thought about that childlike innocence and I thought about how we as a society try and steal that from our youth by making them grow up. I see my kids growing up and doing volumes of homework and studying and I think, “they should do less of this and should be drawing more lightning bolts.”  

For someone who also finds himself intensely serious and morose at times, this is an interesting dichotomy. People tell me I’m intense and that I don’t smile a lot. That I’m constantly thinking and over analyzing. They aren’t wrong. What’s funny is that a lot of times I’m just thinking about being a kid. Being a kid can be hard too. Especially when you need readers. 

I’m hopeful that lawyer guys are happier than I am judging them to be. That they do have legos still. I’m hopeful I can let my kids be more kid-like and I’m hopeful you can sing out loud with your headphones on today. To enjoy. To be a kid. 

And fuck Nazis. I’m stealing my lighting bolt back. 

#hugsandhi5s