When Did I Become My Parents?

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When Did I Become My Parents?

When did I stop listening to new music,
and change the dial to something familiar:
oldies, classic rock; comfortable tunes?
When did I stop driving a standard,
shifting gears with practiced precision,
and buy an automatic, with power windows,
and heated seats?
When did I stop riding a motorcycle?
When did I stop remembering what’s on the grocery list?

When did I start worrying if I had enough fibre in my diet?
When did I start taking daily calcium supplements,
and stopped drinking caffeine after 2 p.m.?
When did I stop staying up late to see in the New Year,
to watch for a meteor shower,
or enjoy the fireworks?
When did I first turn away
from the display of flowery Hawaiian shirts,
to the boring beige and the blue ones on the bargain rack?
When did I start taking naps?
When did hot sauce start to make me wonder
if I still had a bottle of Pepto-Bismol
in the bathroom cabinet?
When did I stop playing paintball,
and take up gardening?
When did music become too loud?
When did the TV volume become too low?
When did the faces on supermarket magazines
start to belong to people I didn’t recognize?
When did I start buying wine in boxes instead of bottles?
When did I start wearing cardigans with pockets?
When did I stop talking about years ago,
and started talking in decades?
When did I start thinking middle age was behind me,
and not ahead?
When did my friends start looking so old?
When did I stop dancing?
When did I become my parents?
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