This past weekend I was at another successful SQL Saturday. It was, as always, great to see so many of my fellow speakers and friends.

I was perhaps a bit more nervous than usual for this SQL Saturday because I was giving a new technical talk and my demo wasn’t working like I wanted and I hadn’t done as many run-thrus as I like to do.  But it was well received and people seemed to really like it. (For those interested, it was a demo of running SQL Server for under $200, including licensing and hardware!)

During a conversation this weekend I used the expression that I might grow old, but I don’t have to grow up. But I’ve realized it’s more complicated than that.

• In the past week I’ve completed my 51st orbit of the Sun while still breathing
• I’m preparing to cook dinner for a bunch of college students this weekend
• I’ve been working with two recent college graduates on a couple of projects
• I’m consulting on a new project and using my years of experience to guide it in the right direction
• My son is completing his first semester at college and coming home this week
• Apparently received praise (this is second hand) for work I’ve done in a volunteer community

Physically at times I sometimes feel my age, and there certain facts that suggest I really as old as I am; but mentally, I often actually forget I’m as old as I am. I wonder, “why do folks think so highly of me, I’m just a young kid trying to figure my way out in the world.”  Then I realize, I’m not that young kid at his first programming job, trying to figure out how to create a make file.  I’m a middle-aged man who has decades of experience in my various fields of expertise.  People look to me, the way I look to my mentors because they expect me to have the answers! (And fortunately, they’re actually sometimes right.) Sometimes too I’ll be engaging with people my own age and they treat me as equals and I get excited that they’re treating someone half their age with such respect. Then I remember, “but wait I AM their age.”  Or people half my age act as if they’re looking up to me and I want to say, “but I’m no different than you” but then remember, “Oh wait, I do have that many more years of experience.”

So, there’s still a bit of me thinking I’m an impostor. I really don’t know as much as people seem to think I do.  Or that I’m not as old as I really am. Can one even be an age impostor?  Not really, I mean age is a pretty objective fact. But the truth is, I don’t feel my age, and for that I’m grateful.

I’ll continue getting older, but I simply won’t grow up any faster than I have to.

One final request from this wizened old boy, make sure to subscribe if you haven’t!  And speak a little louder so I can hear you.