43. Aching feet
42. Failing eyesight
41. Everything taking at least ten minutes longer than you planned
40. Frequent late-night urination
39. Cracking sound each time you stand up
38. Ear hair
37. Nose hair
36. Head hair (in sink/shower)
35. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”
34. “Just resting my eyes.”
33. Unreliable memory
33. Ultra-reliable memory (i.e. increasingly frequent and vivid memories of things you’ve long since forgotten rushing in at inappropriate times)
32. “10th Anniversary Edition”
31. “Deluxe 20th Anniversary Edition”
30. “Special 25th Anniversary Commemorative Edition”
29. Punk kids getting nostalgic about the Nickelodeon cartoons of a few years back
28. Current Nickelodeon cartoons
27. “Like” and “share”
26. Having to learn what “twerking” is
25. Having to think about whether or not you should eat that
24. Regretting your decision to have eaten that
23. Knowing that the rest of your life will be spent watching other people eat that with abandon while you have something considerably less flavorful
22. Not caring enough to get upset about someone else’s success
21. Feeling sympathy when unfortunate events happen to people you spent a long time disliking
20. “Has that spot always been there?”
19. Coming to realize that if something hurts it is probably just going to hurt from now on
18. Coming to realize that pretty much everything hurts
17. “Can you turn that down?”
16. Crossing the street when you see a large group of boisterous young people heading towards you
15. Being invisible to the large group of boisterous young people heading towards you
14. Classifying large segments of the population as “young people”
13. Inability to be boisterous
12. Thinking “it’s kind of late” after 9 PM
11. Waiting until 10 PM so you can go to bed without feeling extra lame
10. Waking up at 5 AM and knowing you can either lie there for another hour or get up and start your day, because the one goddamn thing that’s NOT going to happen is you falling back asleep
9. The death of older relatives
8. The death of your friends’ parents
7. The death of your own parents
6. The death of your friends
5. The death of the hopes, dreams and ambitions you still somehow thought possible even after it made any sense to
4. The strange acceptance that descends after you’ve had enough time to understand that the death of the hopes, dreams and ambitions you still somehow thought possible even after it made any sense to is for real
3. The understanding that you are not so far off from your own demise, at which point everything you’ve experienced will be wiped away as your complete insignificance becomes one with the end of your consciousness
2. The strange acceptance of the futility of your own existence and its imminent cessation
1. “Decaf”
Alex Balk can’t imagine how much older he’s going to feel in ten years. If he makes it.
