Ryan Bridge: The signs you know you’re getting older

I watched a movie Sunday with a group of friends. Here are 12 things I learnt: 1. You probably aren’t hungover on the couch at home uber-eatsing Maccas from the sofa. 2. You have taken the extraordinary measure of walking, using your perfectly capable legs even though you're still a bit stiff and sore from the gym. 3. This means you have visited the gym four times this week to ensure your ass will squeeze into the ever-shrinking vice of a seat provided these days. 4. You chat amongst yourselves loudly while the shorts are playing because you just do not give a flying shite about that level of decorum any longer. Nobody paid for the shorts, they paid for the film - the rest is marketing. 5. The short you do watch has Leonardo DiCaprio (heartthrob of youth) playing the cantankerous father figure to group of young actors you wouldn’t know from a bar of soap. 6. You feel nostalgia that the movie is set in the early 2000s. 7. You find the young actors replicating that style —the clothes, the hair, the style— immediately lame for copying what we clearly wore better. 8. One of your friend has a moon boot on after a ‘fall’ he took while out walking with this same group of friends the weekend prior. 9. You love the movie 'Caught Stealing' with Austin Butler. Not just because it’s a good simple hearty action thriller but because it’s only an hour and half long. 10. That means only one toilet break because it’s impossible to sit on 660mls of fizzy water without the feeling you bladder may explode into a thousand pieces.  11. The timeframe is just enough before you need to rearrange to alleviate back pain. 12. You laugh, you’re enthralled, you feel content sitting there in the dark with your buddies. Happy in the knowledge any worries you had going in are a world away from the grungy lower east side of Manhattan where the film is set.  It’s the little things you notice that paint a picture of where your life is at, how old you are and how you fit into a world of ever changing demographics. It’s a reminder to enjoy the good moments in life with the people that make you happy. Because one day we’ll either have dementia or be dead.   Here's to middle age. Halfway dead and fine with it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.