How To Know if You’re Young

Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

Being middle-aged is weird because you are definitely not young but you’re also not old—except to very young people. To a 23-year-old, I’m ready for assisted living, even though my brain thinks that I was 23 about half an hour ago.

My body, on the other hand, is very aware of passing time. I literally have hip problems, people. It has become very clear that we evolved in an environment where we would be eaten by wolves before our parts started wearing out. This is also a good thing to remember when we’re feeling stiff in the mornings: it’s a privilege to get old enough to have joint problems.

Age is tricky because the number of years we attain is an objective number, but the meaning of that number is totally subjective. Is age 45 old? Yes, if you’re thinking about it at age 25, but no, if you’re pondering midlife from age 95. Even ages that were once almost universally considered “old” are kind of up for debate now. My dad died when he was 70 and I felt robbed. Everyone in his family lives well into their 80s and 90s, so I really wasn’t expecting to lose him so soon.

I know people who are still young in their 70s and others who were born at about 50 and grew older from there. As a young Gen Xer, I felt kind of past it by 25, when the Millennials started gaining traction, but I’ve seen surveys showing that Millennials feel that a person is young until they’re 40(!).

TLDR: “old” is hard to pinpoint and it’s a matter of opinion. However, I think I have hit upon the definitive formula for determining whether a person is young, and I will now explain it to you for your edification and debate.

You are young if a person who is three years younger than you seems like they’re a different age.  

I discovered this rule during a group chat with friends from an old job. One friend, whose kids clearly don’t watch the Barbie Dream House Adventures on streaming, had recently discovered that the show has at least two characters named Barbie. The one from Brooklyn is called “Brooklyn Barbie” while the other one is called “Malibu Barbie.”

His position, basically, was that neither one of these dolls looks like they’re from Brooklyn:

Which is correct, because as I explained in the chat, Brooklyn Barbie is Shannyn Sossamon circa 2003:

This led to much electronic guffawing and also to me falling down a Shannyn Sossamon Wikipedia hole. And that is how I discovered that Shannyn Sossamon is 44 years old.

You guys. I’m 47. But I swear to you that when I was 27, Shannyn Sossamon was just graduating from high school. She was so much younger than me. Many of my dude friends were in love with her in the early aughts and I remember thinking, Just like men to rob the cradle like that. Now, it’s 20 years later and somehow, I am the exact same age as the original Brooklyn Barbie. I mean, what’s the difference between 44 and 47? Nothing, really. Time has collapsed the gap.

So: if you’re reading this, I can’t tell you if you’re old. But I can tell you that you’re young if you think of a famous person who is three years younger than you are and they seem very, very young. If this is you, follow the advice of the late, great Nora Ephron, and put on a bikini and don’t take it off until you’re 34.

In fact, just keep it on if you like it, no matter how old you get. If all this navel-gazing has helped me realize anything, it’s that we don’t have time to worry about these things. Enjoy yourself. You’re younger than you’ll ever be again.