Okay… After meeting an old friend and class mate in Harbor Freight the other day, it’s official: I’m officially tired of people who wake up one morning and decide they’re suddenly old. Now that I’m approaching 50 they seem to be coming out of the woodwork.
Body’s falling apart; can’t do this or that or the other thing anymore; to old and ugly for parties now; throw out the handsome clothes and buy “old people” clothes; turn over responsibilities to the next generation — “they’ve got more energy” and “we live in a society that worships youth” anyway, so… It’s time to just sit on the old decrepit ass, watch the body deteriorate into nothingness, and wait for the end. Yesterday all was roses and trips to the gym to keep in shape; today the body’s in the coffin and it’s all funeral lilies.
Whatever.
Somewhere I missed the memo that said I was supposed to sit on my aging ass and expect everyone else take care of me because 50 is just around the corner. I also seem to have missed the memo that said my body has fallen apart and is no longer capable of doing anything but sitting on said aging ass.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not living in denial. Basic rune wisdom requires us to see things exactly as they are. It’s harder for me to do things now than it was when I was in my 20s and 30s. Since a lot of my work requires me to do manual labor, I live a lot of my life in with the constant aches and pains of one sort or another that accompany such a profession. And all the “treat your body well” therapies — massage, hot tubs, etc. — only help for a few hours.
My grandpas went through it; my dad went (is going) through it. It just is. None of them woke up one morning and said I can’t go out and do what I have to do anymore because I’m now to old and broken. They worked, and worked hard until well into their sixties. They worked young 20 something bucks into the ground.
“Slow but steady,” Papa used to say, pipe in his teeth and shovel in his hand. Twenty feet of ditch a day. And he was a good ten years older than I am now! And he never complained, though I know he was hurting at the end of those days. And I’ve seen what I now recognize as those grimaces of pain from tired muscles, pounding feet, and an aching back on my father’s face after a day in the woods surveying fence lines. But until he was 70 he kept going, day after day — because like my Grandpa, like my Papa, he loved what he was doing, and, more importantly, he loved life!
So don’t talk to me about waking up one day at or about 50 thinking you’re too damned old for whatever it is you’ve decided you’re to old for. Don’t think that just because it hurts it’s bad. They call the years between 50 and 70 (or 80, now-a-days) “the golden years” for a good reason. As one CBS radio commentator put it years ago: “It’ because during those years you’re the most alive. You’re now old enough to know how to do the things you didn’t know how to do when you were young, and healthy enough to enjoy doing them.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself!
Technorati Tags: aging, the golden years, growing old
