Growing Old Is Hard To Do

A long week for me. I began it by going to see Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers at Smith’s Olde Bar Monday night. I stayed out much too late, but it’s rare that I do these things, so I guess I deserve some slack. I had a great time seeing old friends from past shows and meeting some new ones that I’m going to Mexico with next month. A pile of us literally stayed after until the band left. The rest of the week has been a daze as a result.

Tonight, I went to see Green Day in concert at Gwinnett Arena. This is not my first large venue concert, but it has been a few years since I’ve been on the front lines of one. A friend had predicted based on her past experience with Green Day that it would be a young audience. For the most part true, but I did see plenty among the crowd that were probably my age and were in college when they first heard Green Day a decade ago now. They are awesome live. The show was amazing and the boys dominated the stage.

So, how am I feeling older now? Well, about a quarter of the way through, I missed seeing a crowd surfer coming my way. No one around me saw it coming and the next thing I know some kid’s body is making all sorts of contact with my noggin. Also not the first time this has happened, but I freaked this time as my glasses were knocked off! Luckily I was so close to the person in front of me that they were just sort of wedged between us, but it was a scary moment made more scary by a sore jaw immediately afterwards. I spent much of the rest of the concert nervously looking around. Before it was over, I did manage to totally get back into it, but you start to realize at a moment like this how time has flown. My first spring in Atlanta, nearly 6 years ago, I was at Music Midtown soaking up the front of whatever stages to which I managed to snake my way. When crowd surfers came they got a mighty heave-ho into the pit or in another direction or something. Tonight, there were several duck and cover moments.

And now that I’m home safely in one piece, if there’s a part of me that doesn’t ache from being tossed from post to pillar for 4 hours, I can’t find it…