Get Off My Lawn!

I am getting older. It is a fact of nature. Yesterday I discovered that I am aging far quicker than I need to be. We decided to go out to our new local leisure center for some exercise and fun. My Wife took my Son to the children’s play area while I went for a workout. The place was packed with teenagers. It was difficult to get on any of the equipment as there seemed to be packs of the adolescents hovering around each station. I managed to get most of my workout in but I was becoming cranky.

I went downstairs to take my Son to the pool while she went for a workout. As I searched for a locker in the change room I quickly noticed that most of the keys had been broken off of the locks by some little delinquent. My mood continued to sour as I tried to navigate though the flock of screaming kids, who were without parental supervision, on the way to the pool.

Eventually we made our way back to meet my Wife again. After plodding through another gaggle of hyperactive youths she asked me how things went at the pool. I told about my experiences and her comment was “It sounds like you did not have a good time.” I was about the agree with her but then I stopped and asked myself “Who’s fault was it that you got so ornery?” At that moment I was afraid to look into a mirror for fear of finding a weathered old man chasing young whippersnappers off his lawn.

It made me think back to when I was much younger. My brother would spend every single day at the golf course during the summer. I wonder what all the “grown-ups” thought about us when we would spend half of our round walking in the woods looking for lost golf balls. Probably the same thoughts I had yesterday at the leisure center.

Like my brother and me on the golf course these were just kids having the fun that kids have. We adults quiet often forget what having mindless fun is like. The pressure of being a responsible citizen does a good job of sucking that out of us. It also turns your hair grey. Yesterday I realized how important it is to hold on to that youthful silliness just a bit. By letting it go it makes me old and it takes something special away from my son and the people around me.

It is now time to have fun.