Rebuilding Rob

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

Do you feel mentally like your age?

In a nutshell, I would have to say no. To be quite honest, I don’t know that I have ever mentally “felt my age“. I don’t know what 50 is “supposed to feel like and “. I didn’t know what 40 or even 30 were supposed to feel like for that matter either.

I remember reading an interview somewhere that Mark Hamill had done it just is “the force awakens” was getting ready to open. Someone had brought up the fact that Mark Hammill was 65 at the time, which is the same age that Alec Innes was when he played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars.

He talked about how weirded out he was by that idea. In his mind, he still thought of Sir Alec Guinness as “an old man“. He argued that he still likes listening to the Rolling Stones and watching Three Stooges movies, so he couldn’t be “old”.

I guess that’s kind of how I feel about myself. I remember a prompt that I was responding to a week or so back where I talked about the fact that as adults – and as parents as well – we still don’t have all the answers.

In the Netflix series Cobra Kai. It has been talked about (and was even written into a Cobra Kai episode) How Ralph Macchio is now older than Pat Morit was when he played Mr. Miyagi in the original Karate Kid movie.

Here’s one that will make Trekkies heads spin: Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher on TNG) is older than Sor Patrick Stewart was when he first played Captain Picard back in 1987!

So I know it’s not just me. I think it’s a generational thing. I would argue that I look you get than most baby boomers did at 50. I KNOW I look younger than either of my parents did at my age!

I do believe that wisdom and experience come with age. So in that way, I do feel wiser and I guess, in a sense older as well. I’ll hear my students at school. Talk about their parents and I’m still a little bit stun to hear that I am older than most of their parents. But I also have to remember that I was 33 when kid one was born. My parents were 28 when they had me, and I was the last of three kids.

My body is definitely feeling older. I don’t work out as much as I would lie to you, and when I do go a few days without getting some exercise, I can feel it. I can feel it in my knees as I start to take stairs. I can feel it some mornings when I get out of bed. If I’ve been sleeping in one position for too long, I wake up sore. I’m starting to understand what older athletes mean about having to spend more time stretching and being more dedicated to exercise in order to continue to play at their level.

Do I mentally feel my age? No. And most ways I still feel like I’m a kid at heart. But I will concede that that kid has grown up a bit in the last few years. I know that I’m not as patient as I used to be in any aspect of my life. Met with women. Not with my own children, not with my students even for that matter.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Teacher Armor and the Saturday Clearing
• The Extra Day: A Ten-Year Memory
• Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
• Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)
• The Muscle of Empathy

The article “Of Age, Wisdom and Maturity” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.