HaRoeh Es HaNolad

This song had to be inevitably paired with Frank Bruni's "Maturity's Victories." Gigi is my favorite movie (and Barbara Walter's, as she told Hugh Jackman this past week), and "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" has only begun to appeal to me recently. When I was ten I fast-forwarded through this "boring" tune, but if you listen to the lyrics, it possesses truths that should be heard.

The article is from February, and references that whole Peyton-Manning Superbowl frenzy which touched me not; Bruni was then unaware then that the gifts of maturity didn't help Manning's team win. But: 

He has the kind of poise that maturity typically midwifes. He’s unflappable. When something goes wrong, be it his fault or a teammate’s, he’ll grimace only fleetingly, shrug just slightly and press on. Panic, he understands, is a waste of precious energy, a pivot into rushed, stupid mistakes. With a bit of age has come a better grip on the fact that a game, like a life, is long. Stay calm. Hang in. Wait for the inevitable break. Trust your training.

I don't want to be that person who goes to pieces when something untoward pops up. I did it once in high school, freaking out about what I considered to be an avalanche of homework, but after I made a scene on the bus and flopped into the kitchen, I realized it wasn't so bad. Blush.

Once, if I was pressed for time, I would rush and make stupid mistakes that would prolong the necessary tasks. Now I know it is better to opt for careful action as opposed to devolving into hysteria. 

And it’s no accident that many of us, while remembering and sometimes yearning for the electricity of first loves and the metabolism of our salad days, don’t really want to turn back the clock. We know that for everything that’s been taken from us, something else has been given. We don’t move as nimbly as we did. But we manage our emotions with greater dexterity. Our energy may be diminished. Our use of it is more prudent. We’re short on flat-out exuberance. We’re long on perspective.

Oh dear Lord. I'm a creaky grownup.