I'm a middle-aged man. I know this to be true because I woke up with a seriously sore back the other day and moaned and groaned like an elderly gent all day long. I could only get to sleep that night by applying Deep Heat, thus making my bedroom smell like a football change room. 

The pain has passed thankfully, but the stiffness remains and I still find myself making involuntary groans and grunts when I bend down. It is a very unsatisfying feeling to realise you are old, hence the fact that I have learnt, at last, what middle age is.

 Middle age is a way of describing yourself, that, while not being young, at least creates the impression that you are not decrepit. For men this is very important. Inside each and every one of us is a 12 year old boy, dying to get out...not very deep inside either!

Men, for example, like flatulence. It is satisfyingly purile and entertaining all at once. To be fair, all bodily eruptations are funny; but farts are king. That position obviously hasn't shifted since primary school.

This twelve-year-old, inner child, is still certain that we can run so fast that the wind is envious. As H.G.Nelson so succinctly put it, when we watch sport on the couch, we are simply one injury away from stepping up and saving the day.

 It is a reality check when you sit down and think things through. You come to realise that you are actually 'worshiping' footballers who were born in the 90s. An article about the newest AFL team, the Greater Western Sydney Giants (yeah that's really too much of a mouthful isn't it?) compared the players that inspired the new recruits. Callan Ward, the 21 year old former Bulldog selected his former captain 29yo Matthew Boyd. James Mc Donald, former Melbourne skipper, and my age, settled on Gary Lyon (44.)  

Point being, Ward hadn't seen Gazza play. McDonald is only playing for the Giants after being 'retired' by his previous club and getting another chance because of the 'experience' he can bring to a new, youth-filled team.

  That's what I have in abundance- Experience and lord knows I preach it! I find myself actually uttering the phrase- 'Back in my day...,' as a preface to a general piece of wisdom. I shake my head at 'kids these days,' and their crazy fashions and terrible music.

 I am up in arms about the newest fashion 'these kids' are referring to as 'snapback' caps.

They are what we used to call, back in my day: caps.

You see they have this crazy plastic clip system at the back that means you can adjust, said cap to fit your head, revolutionary!

Back before the advent of fitted caps or Velcro fastening, that's how we did it boys and girls!  

 Oh and btw, they're wearing them all wrong! What's with the straight brim? You gots to curve that thing young dude. And why are you wearing it with hair poking out the front, brim pointed up at the sky?  And what's with leaving the labels on the brim, its a sticker? You can actually remove that.....

Then there's the music. Seriously, call that music? C'mon, that's been done before and a hell of a lot better, even if I say so myself.

 Emo? Back in my day, there were Goths and they didn't wear black and cake on make-up and eyeliner to look tortured, they were. If you are going to sing about morose melancholy, you might need a little self mutilation to convince us you're not just looking for an easy way to impress girls!

 Bands like The Black Keys and Kasabian? I mean really, that sounds like the 1970s boys. Sure, there's nothing wrong with that; all that really matters is it sounds good right?

Well sure, but we turned the corner when Wolfmother got massive, ripping Led Zep off and no one called them on it.

 Back when the Black Crowes came to town, we all nudged and winked along with them. We all knew where they'd got 'dem grooves from and they happily acknowledged it too by doing a blistering cover of 'Hard to Handle.'

We were all in on the scam and we dug it. We knew our history and we saw our place in it. Now it feels like the dues aren't being paid. That worries my generation but not the next ones.

Ignorance is bliss.

I still snigger at the thought of a mates Facebook post after Powderfinger's Sunsets tour documentary went  to air- 'Powderfinger are just Noiseworks with scarves!'  

I heard his frustration. I doubt the twenty-something's knew what he meant.

Yep....I'm everything I despised as a twenty-something. An old coot so out of touch I can only see what used to be and assume that's better because I haven't moved on.

How does it come to pass that you become so attuned to your father so quickly? It reminds me of the moment Abe Simpson tells the young Homer to turn the damn racket down and then utters the prophetic words-

'I used to be with 'it', but then they changed what 'it' was. Now what I'm with isn't 'it', and what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me, and it'll happen to you, too'

Sometimes I wish I hadn't tried to be with 'it.' That would have perhaps saved me from the way I'm feeling now. Fact is though, I have fallen into the classic generational trap we all seem to succumb to eventually.  

-Pearl Jam is my band, you can't have them.

 -Nirvana spoke to us, not you little punks. 

-We invented grunge. 

-In fact, we invented irony and sarcasm- Haven't you see Reality Bites or Singles?!

 -What the hell is the obsession with vampires?  Tru Blood isn't even as good as Buffy and, well The X Files, as everyone knows was the real deal....

 I have finally come to the realisation that I am going to have to stop dressing like I'm cool and young though.

In a sense this has been forced upon me. Low rider, skinny jeans and 'slim' fitting shirts have made me see the light.

I'm not riling against the dying of the light so completely that I can see the sense in not getting down with that (and no I can't complain about the level of grundies being revealed by low riders because I'm aware that 'Marky' Mark Wahlberg started that.)

 I sense my days of basketball sneaks and caps are numbered too. Already I have stopped wearing sporting jerseys as everyday apparel and sate my need to do so by only wearing them to exercise.

I find chinos and check shirts much more appealing that I ever did....but I do have an aversion to the Ralph Laren Polo logo.

That is the line I have bizarrely drawn in the sands of time.

 I'll wear Country Road, Gant, Sportscraft, Esprit, older people attire no doubt; but that little man riding his horse, polo club at the ready is something I baulk at.

Not for me just yet thanks. Can't you see I can still wear Superdry and not be looked at sideways?

So this is what my life has become.

A daily denial of my age, factored in with the realization that I can't get away with  pretending that I'm young.  I stand upon the mountain path and look down to where I have been, fearful of looking above me to where the rest of the journey is going.

Sentimentality is really the baum that soothes your fear of the future.

Having said that, while I yearn for my past, I don't want to go back there. It informs me but the lessons learnt don't need to be repeated.

Middle age is, then, a holding pattern and all I can do is wait for the day that my daughter looks at me for the first time and utters the fateful words-

Dad, you just don't get 'it.' "