Feeling My Age

I just watched a performance by New Edition on the Tom Joyner Sky Show, and it occurred to me that I am getting old. Duh...but really, I just had a flashback to the days when just the notice of a performance by this group would cause me to reschedule my entire life. It wasn't that long ago that pictures of Ralph, Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky and Mike (but not Johnnie, not yet) were plastered on the interior of my classmates lockers.

Now, these guys are on the Tom Joyner Morning Show--and I hate to say this, but that is fogey heaven. The audience is full of grandparents still trying to be cool, so I have to believe that when a singer goes on the TJMS, it must mean that they need a gig. And judging from Ralph's thinning hair line, their Temptationesque dance moves, and the fact that they are performing songs that are older than my 20-year old cousin...

When I was 20, New Edition was still semi-relevant because they were the pioneers of the boy band movement in pop music. They revived the format that begat the New Kids on the Block, Jodeci, Shai, Guy, 98 Degrees, the Backstreet Boys, N'Sync and now the Jonas Brothers. If not for them, Justin Timberlake and Nick Lachey would have paid their dues as background singers before being able to strike out on a solo career.

Getting older sucks because it happens without much warning. As I sit here reminiscing, I am reminded of the fact that I graduated from college (at the age of 20) 15 years ago. Back then, being young was the thing I had going for me. I was one of the youngest members of my graduating class which then made me one of the youngest members of my incoming law school class. It made me proud to be so young and to be thought of as so smart.

Now, I am 35 and don't have much to show for it. I am no longer a young lawyer (I think this is the year I get kicked out of that group), so now I transition into that nebulous status between youth and retirement. Fifteen years ago I thought that I would be famous, rich, and still skinny. Well, I am obscure, struggling from paycheck to paycheck, and I have gained 15+ pounds. So I can't really make fun of New Edition for aging when it happens to all of us.

Oh well, they are singing one of my favorites (Is This the End), so I'm signing off.