People Get Old

Lori McKenna’s 2018 song, “People Get Old” is a great one. It’s simple but deep, nostalgic but meaningful, everyday and transcendent all at the same time. The recurring chorus ends with, “if you live long enough, people get old.”

I’ve listened to this song many times and what I somehow failed to grasp was that sometimes those people that get old are me. McKenna literally warned me about this saying,

“One day you'll find yourself sayin' the things that he said
You'll be walkin' down the hallway, turnin' off every light switch”

And if somehow in a song to which I paid more attention to the lyrics than usual I hadn’t grasped this, those Dr. Rick Geico commercials where the young homeowners are turning into their parents surely should have brought it home.

Years ago I heard an older parent say he didn’t get why those commercials were funny. It was just normal. I laughed thinking he had crossed over and was so deep into the “parent morphosis” he couldn’t see the humor.

Well I wasn’t going to be that guy. I knew I’d end up doing some of the things my dad did (turning off light switches perhaps) but I was aware of it. I wouldn’t be the unaware parent of the Geico commercials.

And then I was having a casual conversation and unironically said, “we really need the rain.” The thunder rolled as I realized I was not making small, trite talk about the weather but saying a wildly overused “dad” phrase -- and meaning it!

It really sneaks up on you. Things that sounded so…old, now make sense and don’t seem old at all. I think part of the trick is having heard talk about the weather or property taxes or gas mileage and thinking older folks didn’t actually care about this because I didn’t at the time.

Until suddenly I did.

McKenna’s song is about her aging father and has a poignant line that’s easy to relate to:

“And you still think he's forty-five and he still thinks that you're a kid.”

When you’re a young (homeowner?) adult it may be hard to see how you’re turning into your parents. But it’s even harder to see that your parents are getting older. I’ve observed with some of our kids that I’ve sort of pigeonholed them at a certain age and it can really blind you to the kid they are becoming when you continually look at them through that lens.

For instance, I always think of the 9-year-old as being four. I know he’s not four and he hasn’t been the size of a 4-year-old since he was two, but for whatever reason that’s the age I’ve thought of him for a long time.

Even if you haven’t done that with one of your kids almost everyone has with their parents. At first you don’t even notice that they change. What child ever thought his mom looked different from year to year? Then, one day, you’re thinking about a memory from your childhood and it hits you like McKenna put it: “I’m older now than he was then.”

Whether we’re aware of it or not, in one way we’re all turning into our parents. The good thing is, despite what Dr. Rick’s intervention and those Geico commercials say, that’s not a bad thing.

Houses need paint, winters bring snow
Nothin' says "love" like a band of gold
Babies grow up and houses get sold
And that's how it goes
Time is a thief, pain is a gift
The past is the past, it is what it is
Every line on your face tells a story somebody knows
That's just how it goes
You live long enough and the people you love -- get old