What’s my age again?

In June of 1999, Blink-182 released the album “Enema of the State.”  The hit single “What’s my age again?” from that album had been receiving huge amounts of radio time since April.  I liked it immediately.  I learned the words and sang along…

“Nobody likes you when you’re 23.”

I was 17 at the time.

As it happened, my older brother had a friend who was 23.  We made fun of her, appropriately.  She seemed old at the time.  23 seemed so far away.  It was one of those golden moments of youth where our immortality and invincibility blind us to the simple truths of the world, even as we are singing it at the top of our lungs.

“Nobody likes you when you’re 23.”

I turned 18 a few days after the album was released.

I couldn’t see far enough into the future to realize that I would be 23 one day, and it would come and go in a flash.  Those 5 years would slip away from me as I completed college, joined the rest of the real world in the rat race, and went about turning into the a contributing member of society.  I remember joking on my 23rd birthday that I’d finally reached the age when nobody would like me anymore.  And, still, I sang along.

“Nobody likes you when you’re 23.”

The years spun away faster and faster.  Advancements and setbacks at work.  Loves gained and lost and found again.  A new family started.  Life has been a rollercoaster.  Life has been good.  Which is funny, considering that I’ve now hit 10 years of nobody liking me.

And, if this is how it is when nobody likes you, I guess I’m okay with it.  Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because I keep on singing.

“Nobody likes you when you’re 23.”