Rock of Ages

This was to my immediate left on Friday night. Not scary at all to you, dear reader? Well read on.

That picture probably looks relatively normal, doesn’t it? A couple of people, plastic cups in hand, rocking out to a good band on a Friday night. But they aren’t youth busy revolting, or even aging hipsters desperately holding onto the dying shards of their relevance. Instead these are people in their late thirties and early forties desperately trying to have one of those often remembered but seldom seen good times™.  While watching the throng of Elaine Benes-like dancing, microbrew swilling, babysitter having, not-quite-middle-aged-yet people writhing and rubbing against each other as if trying to start a fire in their trousers that had long been extinguished that these were just a bunch of creepy repressed fucks, my friend Miguel noted (in his own economical way that makes him the less wordy Hemingway to my Dickens-ian insult abilities) that these people were ‘creepy repressed fucks’.

I know it’s unfair to stereotype all of these people I saw lifelessly gyrating with each other, but it’s hard not to. Something about how they nervously and awkwardly groped their significant others’ bodies the other night troubled me. It reeked of desperation, of not really trying, of obligation. Getting old is a scary thing.

I’ve written about this before, but this weekend really encapsulated the things I do and don’t want about aging for me.

I think when a person starts “growing up” and develops a career, a marriage and family stuff they tend to choose comfort and quiet over the things that inspire them or make them feel alive like they used to feel. Maybe some of that stuff is good- going out and getting hammered and looking for a fistfight isn’t exactly a productive thing to do, doing ecstasy and dancing all night probably isn’t either, but it doesn’t mean that you have to save up your energy for six months, go out for one rock show, rub all over your partner and hurry home to not fuck. Life isn’t that black and white.

I think I’m talking myself in circles here, and this probably doesn’t resonate with the people who read and comment on this blog, but I think that sometimes as we get older, it’s easy to let that fire burn out inside of you. I’ve spent the last few years watching it happen to a very dear friend of mine, and it’s sad. He doesn’t seem to have the same goals, dreams or aspirations that he had just a few years ago. Instead, his life is about the monotony of a 9-5 schedule and home for a few DVDs and dinner with his lady. Every night, rinse and repeat. There is nothing special, nothing to look forward to. I don’t even know if the spark is there between his lady and him.   I see him every few weeks, and there’s never anything new, never anything fun. It scares the shit out of me to see someone going that way.

I may still be young and my life not exactly carved in stone yet, so I am a bit more flexible in my actions and activities, but I swear that Jessie and I will never end up this way. We have to stay busy, we have to stay motivated and hopeful, and not trapped in our homes like some sad old widower mourning the passing of our youth. We are young and vibrant! We are alive!

The sad part is that sometimes I worry that this is all happening so fast that I can’t stop it.

For a long time, I’ve prided myself on having one of the best groups of friends that a person could have. We started out as punk rock kids in high school and evolved into professors, body guards, wanna be writers, chefs, IT guys and business owners. Times changed and the closeness of this group of guys (and now the women we chose to spend our lives with) began to fracture.  We still hung on, vowing to be a family of sorts, and for the most part we were successful at it, that is, until this year.

Over the course of the last year that group of guys and the people that came along with it has started to dwindle dramatically.  People have disappeared due to shifting priorities and petty falling outs that could have been solved with one long conversation. People have moved away and others have just lost themselves in a haze of Republicanism, careers, pot-soaked Nintendo addictions and a general lack of interest.  These guys- these people were are still my family, but now my family is splintering because of the malaise of “adulthood”.

So what do we do to fight this? How do we stay vital in the face of future malaise, families and other commitments? I’m smart enough to know that we can’t just live in a box and foolishly refuse to ever grow old or change, but how to we stay resolute? How do we still matter- not just to other people, but to ourselves?

I wish I knew the answer. I wish I could find a way not to stare into that pathetic abyss of adulthood and have it stare back at me as if to say “hey man,  we’ll see you really soon”.

Does anyone know?