In Case You Forgot You Were Old, Adam Sandler Is on the Cover of AARP to Remind You
And in the very same issue is an article wishing Eminem a happy 50th birthday.
Some years ago, an American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) membership offer was accidentally mailed to me. I was in my 20s at the time and laughed it off, knowing in my heart what all 20-somethings think they know, this time will never come.
Guess what? My time has come. Or almost. AARP membership is meant for people 50 and over, and I’m not quite there yet. But, it’s coming. Just how soon it’s coming, I won’t say.
And now the boyish Adam Sandler, whose silly movies filled my youth is on the cover of AARP magazine talking about hip replacement surgeries.
Perhaps even more startling is that the Real Slim Shady is in there too. He just turned 50.
Sandler doesn’t seem worried to find himself on the cover of a retired person’s magazine, and he certainly isn’t retiring any time soon. He’s got the right attitude about aging, saying this in the interview,
“I like my age, and it’s fun to play my age. It’s freeing. I don’t have to be true to anything other than what I look like and what I think and what I do in life.” — Adam Sandler
Sandler’s right. It is freeing to age. My 20s were full of angst and I was always striving to follow the latest trends. But these days, my angsty stage is long gone and so is my caring about what’s trendy. I still have fun following pop culture, but as an outsider marveling at how kids today are wearing 80s and 90s fashions and they don’t even know it. They think they’ve invented something new.
Of course, how can I judge? I hadn’t a clue the first time I heard Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby” that it was a blatant sampling of Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure”. What is old is new again and always will be.
You can’t fight aging. Just this year I started needing reading glasses to see menus. Here it comes. Aging. It’s an unwinnable battle to fight. I won’t go down like the Hollywood elites that have had so much plastic surgery their skin stretches tight across their faces and you can no longer even see the person they used to be. They’ve turned into plastic, youthful faces, with thin bodies, but wrinkly necks. (Why is it plastic surgeons can’t seem to master youthful-looking necks?)
I will instead carry on and keep Sandler’s attitude with me. As he said, “I don’t have to be true to anything other than what I look like and what I think and what I do in life.”
My new motto: learn to accept a wrinkly neck. Also, don’t forget your reading glasses when you go out to eat.
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