Rochelle Riley
Middle age? Not today. I'm too busy
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When you're younger, you joke about it, the day when you'll realize that you've reached middle age.
But the funny thing about middle age is that it sneaks up on you. You're too busy living life to check off that long to-do list you made.
Lists don't allow for the twists and turns that takes you places and gives you things you never thought to write down. And middle age slips up on you, runs along behind you in life until it suddenly catches up and is running alongside — and you don't realize it until you look over and say, "Oh, my, I didn't see you there."
I thought I saw middle age while spending my birthday last weekend in America's favorite city — and mine. I jumped on the A train in Chinatown in Manhattan. First, let me say that those who still claim that New Yorkers are horrible, rude, above-it-all people still haven't met most New Yorkers. Which explains this: As soon as I stepped on, stepped to the center and grabbed a pole, intending to stand for the short ride, a young student in a black pea coat and pink scarf immediately stood and said, "You can have this seat." She said it briskly, without fanfare, without eye contact, which is the way it's done in New York.
Middle age casts a shadow
As soon as I sat, I felt old. I thought of the times when I was the one who gave up my seat.
When I saw that girl see me as someone who needed a seat, I couldn't wait to get off.
The shadow that middle age cast didn't leave as I prepared for my birthday evening. Instead of celebrity-watching and drinks at a hot spot, I opted for a night of community theater and dinner with friends. As I sat in a posh Suffolk County YMCA auditorium and watched a friend sing and dance in a version of "Smokey Joe's Cafe" that can be described only as pure suburban joy, I knew I was having more fun watching the amateur moves of an editor, teacher and real estate agent than barhopping until 3 a.m.
After the show, I had dinner and a lemon martini, which I almost couldn't finish. I laughed as I remembered another celebration, a full night of tequila shots. And now, I couldn't finish a single lemon martini.
Then after dinner, I returned to my friend's house at about 1:30 a.m., to sit up and talk like old times. We lasted a half hour.
Keeping age at bay
Yes, middle age follows you, making you recognize that your journey really is from one destination to another, it does begin and end. And that is why it didn't take me long to start outrunning middle age again, watching it slowly, peripherally, recede to a spot just a few steps behind.
At the airport, in the car, I turned up Eminem. Loud. I raced to a four-hour meeting. Then I raced home so my daughter and I could open our presents, her birthday gifts for me and my travel gifts for her.
We talked current events in that age-defying language we use, our own dialect, that makes me feel young and makes her feel grown-up. She told me about her weekend and I told her about mine. She reminded me again of how hip I am, which fueled our conversations about where to vacation this year.
And I stayed up all night, not unpacking, but watching television and looking at the hermit crab in the terrarium she bought me. And once again, I reminded myself that life isn't what you see the first time you look. It's the thing you feel when you pay close attention to the person you are really becoming, always becoming.
Naw, middle age is going to have to catch up with me next birthday. I'm still running as fast as I can.
Rochelle Riley is a columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Comment by clicking here.
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