BLOG 96: In THEIR eyes

“I’m pissed off about having a middle aged body and I’m pissed off about having a middle aged life but that’s mostly because I still feel – in my very core – twenty-five. Do you see?” Mil Millington author of Instructions for Living Someone Else’s Life.

The real tragedy of the middle years is not the realisation that youth has gone, but the realisation that youthfulness does not totally vacate the premises. It sounds like a cliché but you really do feel exactly the same as you did when you were young!

It’s a big shock to catch your reflection unexpectedly and see an old person looking back. It’s an even bigger shock that by maintaining your property, or being able to fit into old jeans, or having a bigger car – you are projecting to the world that you are now ‘done’. That you are now one of the oldies. How can that be when you feel exactly the same as you did in your prime!

When you are bone-fide young, you assume that the ‘oldies’ feel different from you. They must – else why would they feel that a Sunday afternoon would be better spent wandering about a garden centre than chilling with mates in a pub? Why would they choose to wear clothes that were last deemed wearable 20 years ago when there are perfectly acceptable clothes in the high street? Why would they drive cars with sturdy boots (big enough to transport 3 corpses) when a hatchback is all you need. They HAVE to feel different… why else feel these things are appropriate?

Besides, they’ve had their turn at being young. The law of the universe says they should step back into the shadows and become invisible.

When we are growing up, our parents’ youth holds a kind of hypothetical curiosity. You are not really accepting of the fact that they were EVER young, not in the sense you are young. They can shove a zillion photo albums beneath your nose, display evidence of their younger days about the home…but it’s all of no avail, they are your parents! You think it through hypothetically, the idea of them being young, but you reject it, it is too weird! It’s dead obvious that they came to earth old, having never experienced anything you have ever experienced on felt anything you are about to or are currently feeling.

The evidence for this is clear.

Look at the phenomena known as the ‘Dad Dance’! I mean really? Who would knowingly CHOOSE to dance like that? It’s what middle age men do, because that is who they are…Dads.

And ‘Mum Jeans’… I mean WHY would anyone think wearing jeans half way up your torso could EVER be a look? It’s what middle aged ladies do, because that is who they are… Mums.

These people are old. ‘Past it’. And worse than that they were never ‘On it’!

Did anyone see the 2010 Oscars? Did you catch the tribute to the director John Hughes?

For those who were in a coma and missed it, basically to mark the sad passing of this legendary director, the stars of his movies came together at the Oscars to say bye-bye and thanks. The movies of John Hughes became iconic for those who were young in the 1980’s and early 90’s – not just because they were of the time but because they voiced the concerns of youth and had young casts. Those cast members became known as ‘The Brat Pack’. The movies included Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Home Alone and Weird Science among many.

Like I said, these movies have become iconic. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off has a faithful following in my home with an audience of young men born in 1995/6 (a movie made some 10 years before they were even born). But Mr Hughes movies had a talent for chronicling the struggles of young adults. As the director said himself: "It is so important for you to belong to something at that age as you're trying to identify yourself. Who am I? Where do I fit? How do I belong in all this? That pressure to belong is so enormous."

On stage members of the brat pack including Alex Baldwin (who was co-hosting the whole event), Matthew Broderick, Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, and Macaulay Culkin. They all did their bit as the movie clips played. I watched the tribute live and was quite moved. (Though thought it typical of Ms Ringwald to ignore the colour code and wear a dress that made her stand out… one more time “Andie Walsh it’s not all about you…ALL the time”).

The following day, the teenagers descended and wanted to watch the re-run (you have to be an insomniac to watch it live if you are UK based…so they had missed it). When I warned them that there would be a tribute to John Hughes, they were quite excited. (Well as much as teenage boys trying to look like they are doing homework while the telly is on can be)

I left them to it.

Then I heard a huge gasp and raised voices…. So I ran back to them.

The problem? The kids were stunned that these ‘old people on the stage’ could have ever Rebel Ferris Bueller, or Funky Andie Walsh, or the basket case that was Allison Reynolds! Only Macaulay Culkin escaped their wrath. (Given that he was a decade or two younger than the others when the movies were made; he didn’t in the eyes of the teenagers ‘look THAT bad’).

“OMG… Ferris Bueller looks like MY DAD!!!” exclaimed one. “That CANNOT be Allison Reynolds… she used to be HOT…what happened?” cried another. “WHY did they do this...? If I was that decrepit I’d stay indoors” sighed the quiet one. “Well…” surmised my son “You have to remember that those films are pretty historic, that’s why the old man who made them is dead now”. They all nodded wisely, glanced once more at the dinosaurs on the screen and continued with their homework.

Their attentions had moved on. Within moments they were laughing at Zac Efron and Taylor Lautner wondering why the girls at school find them so intriguing. Then the real reason for the interest in the Oscars became apparent … Vanessa Hutchens Miley Cyrus, Kristen Stewart, Carey Mulligan and some one called Diane Kruger who is their idea of a perfect ‘Much Older Laydee’. (She’s an ancient 33).

I wisely said nothing and retired to a room with no sharp objects. I’d woken up that day feeling as I always do quite young, but after that I felt very.. yep VERY old. It’s a rather hard thing when your vision switches from how you see things to how others do. The cruelty of getting older is that you take your youth with you… you don’t deposit it somewhere.

I guess that’s why the fashions of youth stick Velcro like to their champions. Middle aged women in the 1980’s dressed like it was still the summer of love, because it was when they were young. Middle aged women in the 2010’s dress like a power suit is still a good idea because it was when they were young. I can only imagine that Middle aged women in the 2020’s will be wearing leggings and Ugg boots while the middle aged version of the teenagers in my living room shuffle about in trainers and hoodies! What happens without you knowing is that the youth you take with you just ceases to be relevant.

Thing is …one day, today’s teenagers will hear their kids gasp at the sight of the girl from the Vampire films they all love so much. Those yet to born kids will discount her as worthy of interest and simply see someone who’s much documented moment has past – or as they put it ‘is so done’. She’ll be seen to be old. Which in practical terms will mean she will not be seen at all. They’ll think it tragic that she is no longer young, or beautiful or relevant.

But really! There is no tragedy about getting older. It’s what we lucky people who are allowed to live do.

John Hughes never got to do that for long. Fifty Nine is no age to die.

When I stayed up late and watched the Oscars alone… I saw a tribute to this man who died young. I saw the brat pack actors that he gave their first break to standing on the stage…older now yes… but not done. Not ready to ‘stay indoors’… not for good few years yet. And judging by the peacock blue dress Molly Ringwald upstaged her co-horts with… I don’ think she thought it was game over time yet either.

Those young people in my living room (who were pretending to do a DT project whilst ogling the best of young Hollywood) still watch Ferris Bueller, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science, despite the films being made before they were even born. And yet to them the tribute just meant that … a very old man had died and some old people came up on stage to say night nights.

It was their reactions to seeing the casts of those iconic movies that revealed the real tragedy of the middle years. And that is like it or not you really never do feel you are in them…till some one else calls it.

Cup of cocoa anybody?

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