Sunday Morning Comin' Down (Getting Older)

I suppose it's only inevitable that the older we get, the more we think about death. Not only does your body start giving out signals that it is no longer on the uphill slide of things (i.e. worsening hearing, vision, tooth and skin problems, increasingly easier fatigue, lower tolerance for temperature extremes, and on and on), but you begin to notice the arc of history passing you by. You aren't as savvy about new technological developements as you once were (or are just more resistant to them), you start noticing that you think in markedly different ways than most of the younger adults you encounter, and perhaps most troubling of all, you start to harken back to the days of your youth when quizzed about "how things ought to be". Each generation I suppose, goes through this phase, but the acceptance of the aging process seems to be increasingly difficult for us in modern day America, where our youth-obsessed culture has just about wiped out any relevance and dignity for elderly citizens, and continually pushes back the age at which we are still deemed to be viable sources of knowledge. In the 1960's the battle cry was "don't trust anyone over 30"; with the rampant popularity of teen pop icons and the mad scramble for age defying technology we see today, that cry may have well become "don't BE anyone over 30".

I turned 42 this July. It seemed incredible to me that I am actually that old. For one thing, I have always been blessed (or cursed) with a very youthful face, and the fact that I have never married or had children (nor till recently, lived away from home) has sort of locked me in a perpetual state of adolescence in the eyes of most people in my community. On one level, they know full well my real age, but on another, my appearance and life situation seem to place me in a phase much closer to someone in his twenties than in the middle of his life. That's good and bad I suppose. It's good because like everyone else, I really don't want to appear old or "seem" old in my attitude toward things, but it's bad because whatever life experience and wisdom I've gained are much easier discounted than most other people my age. "Oh you've never had kids, so you can't understand" or "well, if you ever get married, you'll change your mind"...etc, etc.

So in some ways I have it a bit harder than a lot of folks who have these readily identifiable aging markers (marriage, children, even grandchildren, multiple moves, job changes) to sort of remind them that time is indeed passing and their life is indeed progressing. I guess I've been a sort of Peter Pan up until now, able to defy (or at least avoid) these markers and thus retain the ambiance of youth while in reality, aging just as much as everyone else.

But the death of my mother a year and a half ago has deeply affected me on a lot of levels, and one of them is that I am truly beginning to be aware of my age. Someone once said that one of the worst things about losing your parents is that there is no longer anyone between you and the grave, and while I submit there are much worse things about losing your parents, that statement does hold a lot of truth. My mother used to say something similar when she would lament to her friends that it was so hard for her to realize that she was indeed "the older generation", in other words, all the people she thought of as "old" when she was a girl and young adult were dying and people in her age group were taking their place in that most undesired category. I know what she means. While 42 is not considered "old" generally, it's at least half of a normal lifespan, and getting to the point where you think about things like retirement (if such will even be possible for folks my age) and increasing infirmity and eventual death. It's morbid, I know, but how do you NOT think about it? Those concerns, once just the province of the aforementioned "older generation" have now, by default, become yours, along with survivor's guilt and more frequent trips to the doctor. Quite a prize, huh?

I also remember my mother saying that she didn't "feel" old in her mind. That is, she was still the same person mentally as she had always been, and that was the truth. She was a remarkably "in touch" person for her entire life (nearly 78 years); she kept up with modern culture trends and politics and technology as much as possible. But her body reminded her on a daily basis that time was passing.

So far, I have been lucky to avoid most of those physical reminders. I don't smoke, drink or do illegal drugs. I try to avoid caffeine as much as possible, and I try to walk every day. I am thin, though the doctor told me I need to watch my sugar and cholesterol intake, chiefly by more exercise. I know as time goes on I'll be less lucky; no one is bulletproof and I'll be saddled with more and more physical burdens to keep me in touch with my aging process.

I guess the thing that makes me feel old the most if talking to people in their teens and twenties. I don't want to use this as an excuse to rail against the "damned kids today" but I do feel a real disconnect with most of them in terms of priorities and sensibilities. I notice a real affinity for "things" that really disturbs me. That is, no one talks about ideas; almost every conversation I have with people of that age is about something they have bought or the money they need to buy it. Cars, computers, CDs, all manner of new gadgetry seem to really occupy their minds. Sure, those are fun distractions but in the end they aren't even remotely important, and certainly nothing I would want to waste a lot of time talking about. I like to talk about what my mother and I used to talk about; politics, questions of right and wrong, observations about the people around us, new stories that were remarkable and what they meant to us. Maybe I like those topics because I was raised by older parents; my mom was 37 when I was born and my dad was 45. But maybe our culture is moving more and more toward a glorification of the physical and a diminution of the mental and emotional and maybe I just was lucky enough to be born in a time before the balance between these two concerns went totally out of whack.

I hate getting older, but on one hand, I was always a little different from my peers, and that has helped make the transition into (gulp) middle age a bit easier. I never was that physical a person and never fretted all that much about my appearance so the fact that I'm seeing some grey hairs and some thinning on top isn't quite as jarring to me as it might be to some. It doesn't matter if I was no longer able to "hold my liquor" because I never drank anyway. And it isn't a big deal that the opposite sex is no longer giving me "looks" because they never really did, at least not to my knowledge. I'm like my mom, still just me, with a little time attached. "Michael V.2".

I don't like to think about dying and death and being alone, but then again, no one does. And there's no assurance that those who have someone now will have someone when they are near death, and no assurance that someone alone now will still be so at that critical time. Now, just as with every other step of the path of life, I guess I have to just take things a day at a time. It's hard; you think you are secure, you have "backup" in your life in case something happens, and when it's gone it's easy to become very scared and depressed and feel helpless. But I guess the truth is that nothing is infallible, there is no backup that can't be gone tomorrow, and we all die how and when we die and all the preparation in the world can only do so much to influence things.

Oh, hell, it's just Sunday, and I need to get out.