Young but Old

It seems silly, even downright frivolous, for someone in his early twenties to say he feels old or that he is getting old. This seems to be a travesty, and older folks are justified in feeling affronted. Yet year after another, those words are the common refrain that many of my peers, myself included, find ourselves uttering. Especially during such events like ubiquitous birthday celebrations or the much welcome end of yet another semester, it is likely that someone will let on that familiar refrain, to which everybody else would probably concur readily.

Twenty-something is hardly the kind of age that one would associate with Old; in all likelihood, it represents vibrant youth that exudes effervescence and sizzling zest. To be 20-something and say that you feel old is somewhat to rob the right of someone who is 40-something or older to that claim. What do us young, ignorant brats know about old? If at 20-plus years of age, when you are supposed to have just shorn off the innocence of teenage years (which now seem ages ago), you are lamenting about being old, come your thirties, you will probably be crying out loud - I'm super old! - and in your fourties, you will be cringing disgustedly.

That's exaggeration but i would bet people of all ages (probably right after 21) have the tendency to look upon each passing year as a reminder of how old they are becoming. When my friends and i tirelessly say each year that we are getting old, there is perhaps some genuine belief in what we say. We don't need someone who's been through more in life to tell us get a life because we are living a life even as we fear we are quickly and surely leaving our youth: some amongst us, for example, are pursuing passionately what they like to do while a few others, perhaps less adventurous, talk to friends and share with one another their aspirations. For one thing, in today's frenetic pace of life, to be working and worrying about endless number of things is to be and feel old; being young seems rather to be the preserve of school-going kids who surely have fewer worries (BGR and Mathematics homework do not count).

Ultimately, the oft-heard refrain manifests the inner fears that invariably linger in each of us, whether we are in our twenties, thirties, fourties or older. That is why we continue to say we are old/are getting old (realise it's not older) year after year. The first time we ever said that is also probably the first time we felt the burden in our lives. It could be intangibles like unfufilled dreams and lost childhood years or seemingly hefty matters like work and marriage. I know at sixty years of age - if i do get there - saying 'i am old' will take on a different and more sombre meaning. But now, at the inconceivable age of twenty-something, I would hazard a guess that the resonance found in that refrain takes on a different poignance for the very fact that we have perhaps only emerged from our clangorous teenage years not too long ago. To say you are old inevitably is to compare with some previous years. In our case, it was the somewhat rapid (but awesome) college-university-work transitional years. Unlike those in their thirties or beyond who have roughed out the passage of time that we are presently going through, we in the (early, i hope) 20-something age group are probably still adjusting to life's harsher realities, having only recently (length of time and when differ from one person to another) exhanged our impetuous, brash naviety or childishness for worldly wisdom and sensibility. The sense of loss, of eager anticipation, of befuddled uncertainties - they all contribute to the fuzzy disorientation that accompanies the poignancy of the seeming frivolity of 'we are getting old' musings.

At any rate, i know i am still young - although fast becoming old! Above all, it is the company of like-minded friends who are possibly in the same disoriented phase as I that makes me feel: heck, if i am old, so is everyone around me who's grown up over the years like me!

Cheers to being Young but feeling Old.