{"id":225341,"date":"2018-08-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/saying-goodbye-to-youth\/"},"modified":"2018-08-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T07:00:00","slug":"saying-goodbye-to-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/saying-goodbye-to-youth\/","title":{"rendered":"Saying goodbye to youth"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Genevieve A. Suzuki | Gen-X in a Millennial World<\/p>\n

My youth apparently had an expiration date.<\/p>\n

Prior to turning 42, I would get carded every now and then at a restaurant or grocery store. \u201cMay I see your ID?\u201d was commonplace for me. I got pretty used to reaching for proof of age when out with friends.<\/p>\n

Suddenly last year everyone accepted the fact I\u2019m older than 21. That quiet acceptance wouldn\u2019t be too bad if other signs of aging weren\u2019t so blaringly obvious.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere\u2019d all these white hairs come from,\u201d I asked my husband the other day.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh?\u201d he asked, glancing up from browsing the latest news on his phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese!\u201d I said, pulling at each hair springing from the part in my hair. \u201cWhere\u2019d they come from? And why are they so wiry?!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh,\u201d he said, turning back to his phone.<\/p>\n

Weird thing, those white hairs. I don\u2019t quite understand why they only grow to one-third the length of my regular strands and why they feel three times as thick. I always thought I would grow old gracefully with silver streaks slowly showing up as though I had been to a salon that focused on silver highlights.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t consider the possibility I\u2019d look like a Silkie Chicken.<\/p>\n

Aging also means my social circle\u2019s diets have changed drastically. Where we used to sit around noshing french fries, fatty burgers and milkshakes, we now have to be selective of our choices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll have the burger, no fries and unsweetened iced tea,\u201d I said the other day at the drive-thru, grimacing at the resulting heartburn a couple of hours later. Even a burger can do severe damage nowadays.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the music. If ever you are wondering whether you\u2019re in the younger crowd, stop and listen to what the grocery store is playing on its loudspeakers.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite singers of my youth is Debbie Gibson. \u201cOhmigosh, Quinn!\u201d I told my 9-year-old daughter while on a trip to pick up low-carb snacks. \u201cListen to this song! Isn\u2019t it cool!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUhhhh, I guess \u2026 ?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As we walked the aisles, I sang along to one of Debbie\u2019s lesser known hits, \u201cWe Could Be Together.\u201d Then it hit me. My music had become Muzak \u2014 background music played in shops and restaurants.<\/p>\n

Still hopeful, I found the song on iTunes and played it for Quinn in the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh man, Mom, can we listen to something else?\u201d<\/p>\n

I smiled and switched it up, but on the inside, sixth-grade Gen sobbed.<\/p>\n

Sitting in Starbucks on Baltimore Drive the other day, all I heard above was music from when I was younger. Blondie and A-ha took turns crooning while I sat with my fellow caf\u00e9-goers at 7 a.m. on a bright Sunday morning. (This was another warning sign. No one under 40 goes to hang out at Starbucks before 7 a.m. on a weekend.)<\/p>\n

\"Saying<\/a>
genevieve suzuki<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That\u2019s it. I had crossed over. I was like Carol Anne from \u201cPoltergeist,\u201d except the light I was being called to was middle age and no one was crying for me to stay. Not Debbie, who now goes by Deborah Gibson, not my friends with their cholesterol and sugar limitations, and not my husband, who shrugged at the weird white hairs.<\/p>\n

The final nail in the proverbial coffin was when I actually realized the last thing I wanted to do was relive my 20s. My youthful, often na\u00efve, ideals may have been fun, but they\u2019re nothing compared to the spectator sport I now enjoy in watching my own kids hatch their dreams and youthful, na\u00efve ideals.<\/p>\n

So for a few years I\u2019ll just have to accept an existence without having to show proof of age. That is, until I start asking for my senior discount at those 7 a.m. coffee hours.<\/p>\n

\u2014Genevieve A. Suzuki is a local attorney who lives and works in La Mesa.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Genevieve A. Suzuki | Gen-X in a Millennial World My youth apparently had an expiration date. Prior to turning 42, I would get carded every now and then at a restaurant or grocery store. \u201cMay I see your ID?\u201d was commonplace for me. I got pretty used to reaching for proof of age when out […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":221794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11548","_seopress_titles_title":"Saying goodbye to youth","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11548],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-la-mesa-courier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}