Six reasons I felt distinctly old in 2014

It seems like the news sources I read are inundated with lists. But I want to write my own. So, how to distinguish my list from the others? Making it personal.

This year, when I turned 34, I began to feel for the first time that I had definitely begun middle-age, the period when I'm no longer a young person but not yet elderly. What demarcates when one is no longer a kid? Perhaps it's age 18 when you can vote. Perhaps it's age 25 when you can rent a car without paying a surcharge. For me, it arrived in my thirty fourth year. Why?

Top six reasons I felt distinctly older in 2014:

1.) I had backaches:

I used to sleep on my stomach. It's got a little natural cushioning, and I snore louder when I sleep on my back. However, every time this year I slept on my stomach I would wake up stiff with some pain in my lower back. Aging is all about perception. I can ignore birthdays, and I can ignore the fact Jimmy Carter was president when I was born. But I can't ignore backaches. Indeed, this was also the first year when I turned quickly and felt something in my back. The two times this happened, I didn't feel pain per se, and I kept on walking. But I used to feel nothing no matter how I moved, and now I felt something. Whereupon I began having flashbacks of my dad lying on the floor, unable to move because of a backache. I did not have those flashbacks at 24.

2.) I couldn't always identify celebrities on buses: 

I used to pride myself on knowledge of pop culture, and in the internet age, it's actually easier to keep up with celebrity gossip than when I was a kid. But for the first time, this year I began to see celebrities on the bus promoting programmes and products and I had no idea who they were. They were famous enough to need no introduction, yet I couldn't identify them. 

3.) I can't drink coffee past 10pm: 

I used to be able to drink coffee at all hours. I like the taste, and there seemed some sexy allure to drinking coffee in a diner at 2am. If I drink coffee past 10pm now, it takes way too long to fall asleep. Now, one can debate the merits of drinking coffee past 10pm; it's usually not a great idea. The only people drinking it past that hour are truckers (not me), security guards (also not me), and coffee junkies (definitely me), and given the fact I'm not drinking it to stay on the job, perhaps it's for the best that I no longer imbibe late. But, dammit, I'd rather make that decision myself rather than having my nocturnal rhythms make it for me.

4.) I was in the second to highest age bracket in a survey: 

Since moving to NYC, I've taken some improvisation classes out of fun and curiosity. I'm always the oldest student, and I'm okay with that. Most 34 year olds are not jobless graduate students with a flexible schedule. All was good until the final class when we filled out a form about the class, and there was a sector for age bracket. The highest level was "40+." Fortunately, I didn't qualify for that. I did, however and for the first time, need to fill in the second to oldest bracket. It felt like etching my own demise with my pen.

5.) I was embarrassed to admit my age to younger people:

This summer, I did some research with college kids planting trees in Canada. I'm told I look younger than 34, so no-one seemed surprised to have me join them for research. However, in the time I was there, multiple times, perhaps after telling a story about working a teacher or maybe after describing my PhD programme, someone would have a quizzical look on their face and say, "Wait, how old are you?" Each time, I answered in a sheepish tone, saying "34" with an upward lilt to my voice, as if apologetically admitting the fact. Of course, that's better than screaming out loud, "Fuck almighty, I'm 34 and I can't believe I'm more than a decade older than you!" Which is what I really wanted to do.

6.) I don't understand most emojis:

This year, I took my niece to the Jingle Ball, a travelling concert where the hottest young musicians travel America. I expected it would be weird to be surrounded by teenage and tween girls in provocative clothing. And it definitely was. Even weirder, however, was the fact that the performers and announcers continuously exhorted kids to tweet about their concert experience. Tweets were then continuously running, like a news ticker on CNN, underneath the large screens bordering the stage. Every tweet had a jumble of emojis. I felt like an archaeologist who stumbled upon some unintelligible hieroglyphics. My niece is adamant they all have a meaning.