The Song of Myself
Searching for the Me myself as I approach 40 years old.
As I approach forty years old, I no longer Rage Against the Machine, though Zack de la Rocha and Tom Morello were my favorites as a teenager. Nowadays my rock ’n roll predilection is more like Third Eye Blind: “I want something else.” Even better, give me Bach’s 11th Piano Sonata.
My seventeen-year-old self would roll his eyes nearly out of his head.
My best friend drove a Jeep Wrangler with big tires. With the Jeep’s top off, we’d crank the music and head-bang at every stoplight. Just writing this brings back the ringing in my ears and the stink of cigarettes.
I have no regrets about quitting smoking. But today I heard myself say “sally forth, sally fifth” to a high school student and felt the teenager inside of me vomit a little in his mouth.
When I was half my current age, “forty” seemed as distant as the moon, a place where I figured people would live by 2020. At the very least we would all drive flying Jeeps. Now I drive a minivan and my four-year-old son zooms his Matchbox cars through the air in the backseat. On my 39th birthday, he exclaimed, “Wow, Dad! You’re close to one hundred!” That’s the number he uses for anything beyond comprehension like stars in the…
