You know you’re getting older when this happens

I’m 41, approaching 42 in a few months.

I never feel sentimental about my age because I don’t feel my age. Physically, I’m in the best shape ever, thanks to running, better than I ever was and that includes my teen years. Of course, the wrinkles on my face and my greying hair reveal my years, but they have no effect on my own perception of my age. Actually, I love my greying hair. I started getting grey hair already in my twenties. I don’t like the bolding spot on the top of my head though! It’s not that visible yet but my wife teases me, when she gets a close view of my thinning hair.

Mentally I feel young too! Maybe not young but I always feel the same age. I like whatever age I am. I don’t dwell in the past. I like the world as it is today, with all of its challenges and current trends.

We were really young when we had kids. My oldest one is now a junior at high school, approaching college in just a year. I have friends of my age who’re just starting to have kids! I met my wife when she was younger than our oldest son now! That’s a separate story I need to tell one day. My youngest kids — twins -will be ten years in a week. It does sometimes feel a little awkward to tell people that my oldest child is in his final years of high school but the fact itself doesn’t make me feel old. In fact, I feel that having kids at a young age makes you feel young, in a strange way. Not that my relationship with my kids doesn’t have challenges, but, in general, I feel I’m close to them because I am friends with them. Maybe it sounds cheesy to say this (being friends with your kids) but I remember too well how I was when I was their age. I understand their doubts, and fears, and how their characters are developing across different directions. Among other things, that means understanding that they don’t want me — however much of a friend I think I am to them — disrupting their privacy when they want it. Having kids at a young age also means having more common interests. I might not play video games but what they watch, listen to and play is not alien to me. In fact, we kind of feed each other, literally. Today thanks to my second oldest son I had an awesome run listening to Juice wrld. My oldest son on the other hand listens to Pink Floyd (I’m not that old to claim that Pink Floyd is my favorite band! but, still, he learned from me about rock music of recent decades). My daughter and I love listening to Taylor Swift. There are many other examples, not just music.