Age Is Just a State of . . . Oh, Forget It

Look out, here come the baby boomers, once again turning an inevitable demographic fact into a fad, a trend, a marketing opportunity--and yes--casting another annoyingly large shadow over those poor, maligned young adults with the misfortune not to have been born between the years 1946 and 1964.

And because boomers dominate the media, the story is all the journalistic rage of the New Year: Boomers Invent Turning 50!

(You know what’s kind of pathetic? I can’t recall a single trend story trumpeting the fact that on New Year’s Day 1995, the first post-boomers--baby busters, Generation Xers, whatevers--turned 30. Can you? Of course not. No one cares.)

Normally, you’d think just one story on the first wave of boomers hitting the half-century mark would be enough to last us until they start reeling from receiving their American Assn. of Retired Persons applications at 55.

But we’re talking about boomers, those self-obsessed, self-referential, self-reverential folks who take credit for inventing everything that used to be fun: premarital sex, recreational drug use, idealism.

And so, whether we care or not, the media will be humming all sorts of variations on the theme. The New York Times tells us What It Means for the arts. (The arts?) Incredibly, the Associated Press tracks down the very first baby boomer born in the U.S.A. (“though no one knew it at the time”), who happens to be a McDonnell Douglas hydropress operator. James Otis Sickler Jr. lives in rural Missouri, loves the Beatles and still owns the Mustang Fastback he bought new in 1971. Groovy!

I thought the spate of stories would make me gag, but I’m having a paradoxical reaction. They make me gleeful--grateful even--that our national spotlight is on those who turn 50 this year.

The reason is simple, and in typical boomer fashion, selfish. I just turned 40. The fact that pop culture babes such as Cher, Susan Sarandon, Candice Bergen, Lesley Ann Warren, Diane Keaton and Linda Ronstadt are 50 this year has taken the sting completely away.

Well, almost.

While 50 still seems distant--OK, inconceivable--40 feels pretty good. I can’t say I embrace the greeting cardish and wholly untrue sentiment that “Life begins at 40.” (What does that make us the first four decades, pod people?) But the birthday rolled over me like a pleasant wave rather than knocking me down and pulling me under.

Unaccountably, it was 39 that proved the traumatic anniversary.

On that one, I awoke in a panic. I felt like one of those Roy Lichtenstein women, with wild eyes and a type-filled cartoon bubble above her head: “Oh, my God,” it read, “I forgot to go to medical school and become a pediatric cardiac surgeon!”

I tried optimism.

I devoured stories about people reinventing themselves in middle age. (My nominee for most inspiring story of the year was that of Edward Olivares, the laid-off aerospace worker who at 59 became the oldest rookie cop in Los Angeles. I practically needed Prozac when he didn’t make it off probation.)

I felt the advice columnist was speaking directly to me when she responded to a reader who wondered if he was too old to start a new career: “And how old will you be in five years if you don’t change careers?”

I tried denial.

Like some miserable child who hopes she has been adopted after all, I tried to make myself believe I wasn’t 39 at all. Wasn’t it possible that some sort of cosmic clerical error had been made? That I was actually 29? I wasn’t sure what 39 was supposed to feel like, but this didn’t seem like it.

“That’s what’s so weird about turning 40,” a friend said. “It’s the disconnect between how you feel and how you think you’re supposed to feel.”

I tried lying.

I told myself I was already 40 so the actual fact would not come as a shock. But that got confusing, and a few times I actually forgot my age. (You know what’s guaranteed to make you feel old? Forgetting how old you are.)

Anyway, my aging angst is all in the past. With the leading edge boomers roaring over the hill into their sixth decade, 40 seems downright callow.

I can only hope in 10 years, 50 will too.

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Robin Abcarian’s column appears Wednesdays and Sundays. Readers may write to her at the Los Angeles Times, Life & Style, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053.