It’s known that I’m thinking that maybe we ain’t that young any more. I’m reminded of it every day.

I look in the mirror and see that skin is hanging a little looser around my eyes. There are fine, and less than fine, lines cropping up around my mouth and striping my forehead. There’s really no hiding them. And the silver tinsel that is my hair is kept at bay by a colorist I see so often she’s now a friend.

I am having a tough time reconciling these outward signals with my mental self image. I say that I think that I’m still in my 20s. But really I don’t.

I’m a much wiser and much calmer and much more confident and much more accepting version of my twenty-something self. I was going to say more patient, but I’m still working on that.

My neurologist said that I have the brain health of an 18-year-old. That means that my physical brain still fills my skull. It isn’t shrinking. It still has lots of twists and turns, where my thinking is done. I wonder if it was even bigger before, and it actually has shrunk. But that wouldn’t explain the youthful folds and crevices of gray matter. It was the nicest thing anyone said to me. At least one of them.

You see, I’ve had many opportunities for nice–and sometimes not so nice–things to be said to me. It’s just a factor of potential volume of opportunities. Opportunities born of time.

There’s an extensive internship program at my current gig–with the youngins between the ages of just barely able to buy a beer to still covered on their parents’ health plan. [Thanks Obama!]

They have full heads of hair, barely grown in beards, skin that doesn’t sag at their upper arms and their first work wardrobes. They think that I came up with John McCain via their Tropic Thunder view of Coppola’s view of Viet Nam (“Wait,” they said, “That was a remix?”) They are… Millennials.

Now, I know I’m not supposed to like them. Especially in the workforce. They are lazy, entitled narcissists. They are disrespectful of their ancestors. They think things are easy, and don’t get why you don’t fix them, duh?! They get their feelings hurt too quick.

And then, Baby Bear told me that he hates Millennials. “I know, and I’m one of them.”

And I was all like, “Bear, you are wrong!”

See. I was impatient too. I knew much more than my bosses credited me. And they were doing things a dumb way. And, Jaysus!, I could do their job. Seriously. I had the smarts. It’s not that hard.

Every generation starts the same. It’s the trajectory we follow over a life’s course. Over a decade or two, I learned that if it were easy, it’d be done. That the battles are much less important than the war. That we have different preferences and styles, like I like the forest and you like the trees. I found out as Broadway Aaron Burr said to young Broadway Alexander Hamilton, “Talk less, smile more.” And, maybe most importantly, life is not fair. The best ideas, the clearest tones, the rightest right, the most honest truths do not win out. Not all the time. Sometimes the bad guys win. I really hate that. But it’s true.

The Bear and I went around and around and when we were done we landed on one big difference between when old people were young and his cohort. It’s the butthurt feelings.

Oh, Millennials! I recommend that you work to gather as big a perspective as you can. And use that vista to inform your view. Make it bigger than you.

My other millennial spawn, The Big Guy, took me to school and flipped my script. Turns out, I’m not the center of the universe. What? Who knew?

When people make decisions that aren’t about me, they are not thinking about me. Seriously. They are making a call for themselves. I might end up as collateral damage–and that may need to be addressed–but their focus wasn’t on causing me butthurt.

Someone else says it best.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by carelessness.* –Hanlon’s Razor

People are not required to take your feelings or perspective into account. It’s nice and all, but not a requirement. Anyway, it’s a gift to have your perspective challenged. It makes a person think. Thinking is good. That’s something that my young brain/old self can wrap around.

Thanks, Youths, for reminding me that we’re alike, just at different times. Hope you’re not disappointed when you get to my place. Let me know. I’m not as old as you think. If you do the math, I’ll still be alive.

 

*Other people prefer “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity,” but I find it’s more likely omission vs. stupidity.