Age isn’t Scary! Here is One of the Best Things about Getting Older.
We (Gen-X-ers) have an opportunity to rediscover ourselves.
All I got was a photograph. A snapshot of what I used to be.
Pimple face, long hair, ripped jeans, and a denim jacket full of badges from my favorite 80s metal bands. My friends and I were ready for an Anthrax and Iron Maiden fest.
“Bring it on,” the picture seems to suggest.
The picture is a distant memory from my first heavy metal concert. My mother took the picture. I’m not sure what she must have thought at the time.
Fast forward more than thirty years, and it’s clear that adulthood has changed me. I’ve outgrown who I used to be. Experience has replaced youthful exuberance. My job — being a law professor and a lawyer — is filling the most significant part of my life. And I believe it’s great work that truly matters. I feel settled.
Every once in a while, however, heavy metal runs through my veins again. I then turn up the sound system of our SUV and listen to my favorites. And sometimes, my wife and I go to concerts, which feels like returning to a world I’ve outgrown — like meeting people from high school or visiting someplace you haven’t seen in over thirty years. Familiar, yet out of time and…
