I'm getting older now, I can tell. I can feel it, though it's different from what I thought it'd be. It's just not what I thought. There's a lot said and written about this aspect of life, some of which is true and some not. Some is humorous, and some not. I wish I had recorded it all, to do a sort of comparison. It is because I didn't that I'll have to give you the “quick and long” story. Such as things always seem to be.
To begin with … I don't know where to begin. It seemed to sneak up on me, as so many told me it would. One day I was young, and then another I'm not. It's not that I'm so old that I can't do for myself, or anything like that. Hell, I can still and often do, ride a bicycle 600-1000 miles a month. It's just... well, I mean at 50, I'm not really old, not in the physical sense anyway. I'm older than most my bosses and fellow associates, but that's not what I've noticed that led to the realization that I'm getting older. It's not just one certain thing. It's much more subtle than that. It's an accumulation of many things.
Of course the physical stuff comes first, the stuff we are told about. This are those common aches and pains that sort of sneak up on you. You begin to find that bending or stooping to pick something up is a lot easier than getting back up. Later it seems one is as difficult as the other. Then there's mornings. No longer can you wake up at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. and spring out of bed like a mongoose to start a day at work. Now it takes a little more time to get motivated and the blood flowing. God help you if you're one of those who still think you can party like a bangee on your days off and still make an Olympic dash out the door and get there on time. A hang over is no longer a hang over but an event marked with “out of body” type realism.
Even on a normal day, a single cup of coffee doesn't do it for you anymore. You use to make fun or complain about the amount of time it takes for your girlfriend or wife to get ready to go to work in the mornings with remarks like, “Geese, I could have been out the door, there, and done half a days work before you make it to the drive.” Instead, you're thanking her. “Take your time," you say while trying to gulp down a second.
If you have one of those jobs where you could often skip lunch in order to get more done, you find that you no longer can. If you do, your body retaliates with hunger pains and greatly diminished energy levels sometimes accompanied with headaches and light headiness, not to mention your reduced level of patience with others. Toward the end of the day you're often not as proud of your accomplishments of the day as you are happy to get the heck away from there.
All this is the physical stuff. Stuff you were told about. “Just wait. You'll see.” people would say. They were right of course. It just sort of sneaks up on you, but it's the other stuff I'm thinking about. More subtle things. Things I didn't think I'd ever notice. Things that weren't told to me so often. Though I can't remember the name, but one humor writer wrote of it, “You know you're getting older when the younger ladies no longer “look” at you.
Recently I've been checking out those high school and college reunion sites on the Internet. You know, where you sign up for a listing in your graduating class to find others from your class for the purpose of exchanging e-mail to find out what became of them, what they've done with their lives, and more often than not, how they've fared compared to you, or you to them. It's usually the sort of thing only older people will do. Then there's these “chat lines” or groups to join that share your same interest. This in itself is a clue that you're aging! When I was young, I had no need for such things as I hung out with these people on a daily basis and had my entire future ahead of me.
