There’s nothing that scares a person more than the thought of one day not being what you once were, the fear of an ending, it’s partly the fear of the unknown and partly the fear of knowing that we’re not as good as we once were. It’s absolutely terrifying to think that we might one day become irrelevant, nobody wants to feel like they’ve outlived their usefulness although it happens every day. As we age our bodies break down, we begin to lose a little bit of our talent, our wits, our speed, no matter what you do you can never beat Father Time.
One thing that makes a person feel old is when the things they loved as they were growing up start to fade away, you eventually hit that point where you’re constantly looking back and the phrase “in my day” starts to creep into your vocabulary, nothing will make you feel like you’ve reached that magical age where you’re no longer relevant than to start talking about how the current generation is so much different than the previous. A very wise man once said, the lowest form of conversation is “remember when.” Nobody wants to reach the level where that becomes their entire repertoire.
Earlier this year one bastion of my childhood was taken down, one of the things that I’ve looked at and assumed would always be around was laid to rest, having grown up watching pro wrestling there was no bigger character to me than The Undertaker and his Streak seemed immortal. Watching WrestleMania and seeing Brock Lesnar do the impossible and actually beat The Undertaker at the biggest event in pro wrestling, a part of me died inside. Suddenly my age became very clear to me, something that I had come to expect was gone and I felt like I wasn’t part of the target audience anymore, making me just a marginal viewer, and as a result much less important.
As if losing The Streak wasn’t a big enough blow to my ego, reading about my favorite band of all time even mentioning that they could be looking at retirement hit me once again in the age box. Metallica has made it thirty years now, and unlike most bands that hit that point they’re still on top and still very important to their chosen musical genre, but they are getting up there in age with all the members around the fifty year old mark. It looks like Father Time may be on the verge of claiming a few more victims, and I’m one step closer to looking in the mirror and seeing that old man I never wanted to become. Such is the cycle of life, and it sucks.
