Forever Young

i am 27 this year and i remember when i went to Madam Wong's just last year and how that made me one of the oldest in the crowd there. for a female, i was definitely over the average age that makes you still eligible and desirable! nevertheless, it was a night of giving onself up to drink and dance - temporal freedom.

being older does have its advantages. i feel more liberated these days to fully enjoy myself without surrendering myself to the insecurity that used to hold me back from letting myself go.

and when the song 'Forever Young' came on, it was the older ones who sang it with more abandonment. the young ones enjoyed the song, probably as a celebration of their youth while the older ones really gave voice to the song that arose from deep within. it wasn't sung with regret but 'Forever Young' here connotes something different for us. we want to be forever youthful and we will be that. we can't celebrate youth anymore. neither can we claim to be young. and this is what spurs us on to sing.

because we choose to live forever-young.

but just the other day, a colleague played that song in the office. and he looked downright depressed. he is 33 and he thinks that he is old. he mourns his age daily. he actually looks much younger than his age but constantly bemoans both the facts that he looks younger and that he is old. he prefers not to be thought of as so young and at the same time, gets himself all depressed over all of his 33 years of life.

and he played the song 'Forever Young' and simply sat there, staring into space. then he turned around to sigh to me, "I'm 33..."

it's the same song.

i guess it's a matter of the glass being half-full to me and half-empty to him.