Started growing my beard in, for the first time in years. It’s white. Hell yeah I’m old
Sometimes it’s weird to look back on middle school, and the teachers who brought our generation up as young kids being told about the future. I’m an adult now, and I feel like an adult now, but in a way it feels like I’m still a part of that group of dumb and naive kids. It doesn’t feel that long ago at all. But the reality is that all of us are now pushing 40, and our time there is now wholly irrelevant, and we’re so far removed from those years that it’s fucking wild. A lot of those teachers are probably dead now.
I don’t know how to articulate what it is I’m meaning to say here. It’s just weird that we were kids so recently. I don’t feel like my life has gone by all that fast, but middle school to 40 somehow did all the same. I feel my age, and I feel as though I’ve lived to my age, but my memories don’t feel distant whatsoever. It feels like that was nine years ago.
Just like I feel like I was still living at home with my dad a few years ago, but I’ve been living in another country away from my parents for 7 years now, and my dad had been dead since last May.
He was such a good dad.
our parents felt the same thing
Your dad simultaneously saw you as the baby who slept securely in his arms, the child he saw through junior school, the teen who he tried to help steer past his own mistakes and the adult he wistfully spoke of with pride
Imagine how good he must feel to know that you remember him this way.
You have put it in the perfect words. Thank you.
Thank you. This is a beautiful sentiment.
Condolences for your dad. 42 here, my dad is showing his age majorly now.
Looking back I know I lived every single hour but huge leaps of time are just gone. Like, entire jobs I worked for years I have maybe a half dozen memories. On top of that our work product is gone, the company is gone, the building is gone, the entire industry is changed… it’s like it was all a dream. I definitely understand the old man looking at a city and saying, “this was all orchards”. I used to think it was a wistful phrase, but it’s also an expression of disbelief. When we were embedded it all seemed so important. But it all shuffled off with zero fanfare. It really changes how you experience life, and that’s how I “feel old”.
I lost my last grandparent this Easter. She was much younger then my other grandparents. The 3 of them would be over 120 years old now. I’m a millenial, I’m 40.
Its always good to hear that some of them were good people.
I took my kid to the doctor, and when we left she asked if we could go visit the places I grew up and went to school. Drove by my grade school but didn’t stop in, still in session. Went by my junior high and there was my science teacher, she was probably a few years from retirement.
I said hi and we talked for a bit, told her “no, not a parent, you were my teacher almost 30 years ago”, and she got a huge smile on her face and was really happy one of her students recognized her and talked with her for a while.
Made the trip worth it, but I am glad she didn’t remember me. Was a shithead kid in junior high, but I think we all kind of were at that age.
This is the absolute best gift you can give a teacher, to come back and say to us, “You made a difference; I remember you.”
We don’t get to know if we really did anything unless this happens.
Source: watching my mum as a 40+ year teacher and my own 10+ years in the profession.
ETA: Space I could not live with.
Depends who you ask, some would consider that age group to be the at the end of Gen X and some consider that the beginning of the millennial. So people in that age group can consider themselves members of both generations.
Aka Xennials
Once I heard us referred to as The Oregon Trail Generation, it has stuck with me. It’s the perfect descriptor for people born somewhere close to 1980. We were the ones to have an analog childhood and a digital adulthood.
That’s very accurate!
Born in 1984 and I often use the phrase “one leg in the analog, one in the digital”. Mostly because I had to learn the Dewey Decimal system.
80-84 is Oregon Trail last I heard but I haven’t done demographics in a while
It’s happening to me this year and I feel it. I’m going to be an old fart that I said I never wanted to be. Wish I owned a lawn to yell at kids to get off of, guess I’ll just have to settle with being grumpy in the hallway of my rental whenever I cross paths with another human.
I work in a school. I laugh and joke a lot with the teens. Sometimes I forget I’m not one of them and I’m 40. I’m just as immature as them, just more experienced. A lot of my coworkers forget what it was like to be a kid and how boring most of us are. School sucks, remember?
It’s happening to me this year and I feel it. I’m going to be an old fart that I said I never wanted to be. Wish I owned a lawn to yell at kids to get off of, guess I’ll just have to settle with being grumpy in the hallway of my rental whenever I cross paths with another human.
i crossed that threshold a little 2 years ago and both my eye sight and hearing immediately started calling it quits once i hit 40. i always thought that being a stereotypical broke ass millennial would keep me young so long as i didn’t have a lawn or medicare to obsess over, but it’s clear that it’s not true since i’ve lost count how many times gen-z’ers misidentified me as a boomer and fellow millennials keep insisting on pushing the millennial birth year further up.
I’m so sick of sharing this relevant xkcd
glances into mirror
Oh.
Right.
…Shit.
Yeah my kids are a hoot
the oldest millennials are 44 actually
Yes. And our back tells us sometimes.
I’m a young, spry, 39 year old millennial and my back is killing me.
My back is fine but I don’t do physical work. I just sit around and that’s probably worse in some cases.
I’m 39 and my hips are already gone and I have trigger thumb.
Turning 43 this year if you take the common 1981 as the cut-off.
they’re starting to say it closer to 1985 now; according to the 95% of the fellow millennials i talk to
What timing. I turned 41 this week.
Happy birthday. I turned 40 this week too. Yay us.
Have been for a bit
It’s not really a shocker when you get reminded every year.
Hard to think 2019 is 5 years ago
I’m baby-faced which keeps me sane but that resolve was shook a couple days ago when an 18 year old (that was born the year I graduated high school) found out my age and said I was old enough to be his dad 😔
In a few years you’ll think of how young you were when this 18 year old told you you could be their dad instead of grandpa like you’ll be told in those few years.
Time scares me. I fear it.
Times gonna happen whether you fear it or not, friend.
Having. A babyface is kinda weird. 20 year olds talk to me like i had any idea what they are talking about. I’m always like: haha yeah no, i’m actually old.
The other day i was standing in line and there was a family behind me. The mom did some Smalltalk with me and just for the fact that they had kids, i talked to her like i would to an old person. Like she was giving me some weird advice for some reason. Then i put one and one together and realised that they had a child when they were 20 and he was now 10-ish and they are actually 10 years younger than me.Critical hit.
It was man, I even told my wife how hard it hit me when I got home lol 😭
Kid wasn’t even born when 9/11 happened.
Can confirm. Class of 2000. 42 years old.
Ditto.
If you ever re-watch Milo and Otis, you’ll be traumatized at how many puppies or kittens they probably went through.
Been there 😥
I love the idea that my reality keeps others up at night. Also class of 2000.
So you’re that Y2K everyone was afraid of?
Forget Y2K, let’s be afraid of Y2038.
God damn you’re old, I’m class of 2000 and I’m only 41.
Ha, I’m a December baby.
Me too, but class of 99, also 42.
Is that like graduation from high school at 18yo, for the non-americans in the audience?
Yes
Thanks.
My name is Droxthar the Destroyer and I am raised in the time of Carl Winslow, Of Screech, Of Sister Sister, a time of decadent splendor. And I greet thee.
But are you self-sealing?
Represent!
We’re the reason we’re called millennials in the first place. Graduating class of the new millennium!
The fuck you are. You’re the last class of last millennium.
Wouldn’t that be class of 99?
New millennium didn’t really start until 2001. So they are still right. (There was no year zero.)
Chronomancy!
