Cue simplistic, yet catchy, guitar riff. Say what? “Well I guess this is growing up.” That line, or perhaps more so the melody accompanying it, propelled Blink 182 to stardom over a decade ago. You remember the song? It was short, but not so sweet. A quick listen and a little reading between the lines, and one could easily get the idea that growing up stinks (not that reading between the lines is generally required to decipher Blink 182′s lyrics. In fact, in this case one could probably figure out the tone of the song from the title alone. I’ll let you Google that, though, as this is a G-rated blog). The point is, growing up stinks, right? After all, Ponce de Leon didn’t get all worked up because he thought he had found the Fountain of Old Age. Women don’t collectively spend billions of dollars each year to accentuate their forehead wrinkles, and as far as what I’ve seen, men in the middle of mid-life crises rarely leave their wives for hot chicks they’ve met at local nursing homes. We live in a society dominated by the allure of youth, and as follows, it has been accepted conclusively that growing old just flat out stinks.

Now, perhaps there is a semantic difference to be argued between growing up and growing old, as the former could indicate the act of being more responsible regardless of age, while the latter might mean purely the process by which we age, understanding also that the two aren’t always intertwined. As John Maxwell once said, “People say wisdom comes with age. I don’t think that’s true. Sometimes age comes alone.” I agree. However, as to how I’ll be using these terms in this blog, let’s assume that they are synonymous. So, all that being said, what’s so bad about growing up? There are the obvious reasons, such as the physical effects of aging, but on the flip side, are there not benefits, as well, to age that were not available in our formative years? Of course there are, and though I’ll pass on identifying and listing them specifically, as they are every bit as varied as each of our individual life experiences, they do indeed exist. It is only that we are usually too near-sighted as youngsters to believe so. Take me, for example.

I have always hated the idea of getting older…always. When I was 10, I didn’t want to be 12, at 12 I didn’t want to be 15, and so on. I didn’t want to grow up; I was a Toys-R-Us kid…ok, maybe not, but it should be of no surprise that as a 17 year old I bought what Blink 182 was selling when they burst on the scene in 1997. Their message, heck…society’s message, that growing up is nothing but a crap sandwich of bills, headaches, responsibility, and work made sense to me. “What 17 year old looks forward to being 25,” I thought? “Life is just fine now.” As time continued on, though, an interesting thing kept happening to me. At 12, I didn’t want to be 15, but when I turned 15, the reality of it wasn’t so bad. At 17, I dreaded being 25, but when 25 hit, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I’m less than a year away from 30, and you better believe that as a 25 year old I was in no way excited about being here. Nevertheless, here I am, and you know what, it’s pretty darn good. So although, even now as I’m sitting here typing, I loathe to the core the idea of turning 40, I am getting the message. It seems that the anticipation of growing old is much worse than the actual process, and just being aware of that, in a sense, is liberating. Could this new found, cathartic knowledge possibly be construed as wisdom gained through age? I’m not sure yet, as true wisdom does require a corresponding change in action or attitude, and I am still, for the most part, wishing that I could slow down the hands of time. Regardless though, the point is that I have more clarity of thought about life than I did 10 years ago, and so, although wisdom may not be running stride for stride with my age, at least my age isn’t coming alone.

Now, to put some background behind all of this, let me tell you how this quasi-epiphany came together in my head. Last Saturday I spent a good part of the day mowing and weed eating my yard, and as I was doing so, I was listening to the radio via my iPhone and the Pandora application (which is very definition of beastness). A familiar little ditty from Blink 182 came on. I hadn’t heard it in a while, and since my musical tastes haven’t changed much over the last 13 years, I still totally dug the sound. While singing along, though, I quickly became aware of what has changed…my opinion of the lyrics. As a 17 year old kid, I could barely imagine, and didn’t want to imagine, life as it is for me now. Here I was, all grown up, mowing my lawn on my day off, and hurrying because I needed to get back inside to watch my 19 month old son so that my wife could take my 3 year old daughter with her to watch a friend’s ballet recital. Every boy’s dream for a Saturday night, right? No, but guess what? I’m not a boy anymore. I’m 29, dreams and priorities change, and this 29 year old…adult…wouldn’t have it any other way.

As a teen looking to the future, I could have never predicted how pleased I’d be living the life I’m living now, doing the things I’m doing, things that seemed so boring…so grown up…at the time. I am content in them, though. I really am, and maybe, for me at least, my increasing comfort with the aging process will only accelerate as the years pass by. Who knows? Because if history is any kind of teacher, I will almost certainly have a somewhat different perspective on life as a 65 year old then I do now. In any case, my ever progressing expectation is that one commonality (among others) will be this: that just as I’m every bit as happy now as I was as a teenager, that I’ll be equally as happy as an old geezer. So, what’s the explanation for this mindset evolution of sorts over the past decade? Well, I guess this is growing up. Hmmm…doesn’t actually stink at all.