Blue Scream of Jeff: July 2017

Saturday, July 29, 2017

Change, my dear, and it seems not a moment too soon….

I never thought it would come to this.

But just days away from marking my 52nd year on this planet, I’ve come to the stunning and quite unexpected realization that I am old.

I don’t mean physically. I’ve been noticing those little age-related aches-and-pains for a while now. What I mean is mentally.

At first I thought it was just a nostalgia phase I was going through. I’d spend hours looking at old pictures of my home town and college in online archives and wishing I could go back to those times and places for a day or two.

Then I found myself noticing that time was flying by faster than I ever remember it doing in the past. Whole days now seem to disappear into the ether before I can even get to half the things I’d planned on getting done. It seems to me just a year or two ago, I could get multiple things done in a day while now I can’t seem to even accomplish one.

Even this summer has seemed to fly by. It feels like it has just gotten started and it’s already almost my birthday, which comes at the tail-end of the season. Where did those long, lazy, hazy days of summer go?

Then, just to cap things off, came the announcement of the new “Doctor Who.”

Okay, I know that sounds like a non sequitur, but stay with me for a moment.

You see, when I heard the announcement last week that Jodie Whittaker – a woman – would be playing the 13th incarnation of titular character in BBC’s long-running sci-fi series about a mysterious time-traveler and his – or should I now say her – oddly shaped time machine, I was upset.

Jodie Whittaker as the latest
incarnation of The Doctor.

My first thought was why do they have to go and change things! For its 54-year run, the part of The Doctor had always been played by a man!

Look, I’m not against gender equality and it’s not that I think that Jodie Whittaker won’t make a fine Doctor. I’m sure she will. Like all the other Doctors who came before her, I’m sure I’ll grow to like her and even miss her when it comes time to hand the role off to someone else.

It’s just that it was a huge and drastic change in my life which has recently been rocked with other unexpected and upsetting changes. And, as I’ve come to realize over this last week, I’m not as tolerant of change as I once was.

I only came to this realization when I found myself trying to justify my feelings by essentially saying: “but we’ve always done it this way!”

Have I mentioned to you that I hate that phrase?

It’s the been the bane of my existence as an IT guy, when trying to get people to adjust to updates and changes in technology. It aggravated me that people were so stuck in their ways that they couldn’t see that the new piece of equipment or software I was giving them would actually make their lives easier if they would just give it a chance.

And to my horror, I found myself being that cranky old-person who didn’t want to give up his “tried and true, old fashioned” way for something potentially better.

When the hell did this happen to me???

I remember as a kid being excited at the prospect of entering a whole new decade at the end of the 1970s and seeing what changes it would bring as we grew ever closer to the year 2000.

Even as an adult, I looked forward to living in “The Future” and getting to play with all the new sci-fi inspired gadgets we were sure to get in the new millennium. And with the exception of the flying car and robot maid, I haven’t been disappointed.

So why now, don’t I look forward to and accept change as readily as I did when I was younger?

The only answer, I can think of, is that I’m getting old.

And that depresses me because the last thing I want to become is that stereotypical cranky old man who complains about how things were always better “back in my day.” I still want to be that bright-eyed young man who still looks to the future with awe and is excited by all the wonderful changes it will bring.

So thank you BBC, Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker for rattling my world and making me aware of the road I was heading down before it was too late. I don’t want to become that old man. I want to stay young and it seems the only way I’ll truly ever be able to do that is by following the sage advice once uttered by another incarnation of your famous Time Lord:

“Change my dear, and it seems not a moment too soon.”