Someday I'll Be 18 Going on 55

When I write, I usually listen to headphones even if I'm alone so the music can go straight into my head without mingling.

I remember when an old boss gave me an iPod shuffle as a Christmas bonus. It could hold 100 songs, which at the time seemed an insanity of musical abundance and variety.

My current writing playlist has around 500 songs on it, and yet I still hear a lot from Bryan Adams. The last few times I heard "18 Until I Die" (a song most helpful when you're 41 and writing fiction for the 15-23 year-old set) I wondered if Bryan is yet 18 going on 55, like the song says.

I just looked it up. He's 56.

With the cultural and artistic icons we've lost this month, I (like everyone above a certain age) have become acutely aware of the mortality of my youth, of being a young old person on the shallow end of my forties.

And yet I still listen mostly to the music of my youth. I still identify better with 18 than 55, even though I'll be 42 in about two weeks. Thirteen years from 55, 24 from 18.

Holy shit.

Better get out of this cast and get both feet in it.