I turned 49 a few weeks ago. Did I
care? Nope. It actually felt like any other day really, except with
the “Happy Birthdays” and usual jokes about nearing 50. So what
has changed? Both body and mind have over the years, but the body
less so. But that'll catch up in time.
That last snowstorm we had, the MONSTER
one, tested my abilities to shovel 20lbs of snow 500 times in a row.
I did well. I compared it to how I did during the last winter. What I
did notice were the after effects were more pronounced. Shoveling
snow has always left me feeling like I was beaten with a hockey
stick. But, the recovery takes longer I find now. I managed to dig
myself out in one day (sort of...90% at least), so I still have “it,”
for now at least. I suppose biking 20 miles a day like I did during
the summer and autumn helped prepare me? But boy did I feel that
last snowstorm in my legs, back and knees.
My crow's feet lengthen, my beard
stubble whitens and I've had to get a stronger script on my glasses.
These things advance slowly but surely.
There are ages where we all cross a
threshold that shouts out to us about our past. Turning 18 is huge,
as you graduate high school and are considered a legal adult. Turning
23 and graduating college was another. Then the word “adult” sunk
home as I now had to enter the real workaday world. I was doing
adult things constantly. Paying bills, taxes, getting the car
fixed...bitching about getting more money to keep doing the same
things but with more ease.
Turning 27 was the cutoff mark of being
a young adult. I could not, I thought, with any
justification, be found dead in a ditch with a mind full of
chemicals. At various ages you are no longer allowed to pay with
certain toys. Past six years of age, playing with blocks gets you
laughed at. Playing with cocaine past 27, gets you laughed at at
your funeral. You put down “childish” things to pick up toys more
attune to your age, like keeping the lawn weed free or refusing to
play a make-believe “Dad/Designated Driver” to your drunken,
immature buddies who haven't figured it out yet.
The next hurdle that shook me was 35. I
felt I had entered middle age then. I could tell. I no longer
understood or even knew about the new music, fashion, comedians or
what-have-you that the 18-22 crowd fawned over. I didn't care either
as there was no interest in me for it. Asking me then if I had heard
of Destiny's Child would be like asking me if I knew the latest pop
songs being played in Argentina. It was foreign to me now. That was
then when I started to pick up that aging man's annoying habit the
young hate with a passion, being dismissive.
There was a well meaning young
20-something I sort of knew then and he had called my attention to a
song on the jukebox he had ordered up. As the song played, he was in
half rapture as he listened to it. When it was over, he turns to me,
expecting me to thank him for finally finding the Holy Grail and
asked me...”Well, what do you think of it? It came out last month!”
I answer,
“It's a take off on Emerson, Lake and
Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery.” I sort of dropped
that fact onto his lap like a bowling ball. I probably showed some
boredom and total lack of enthusiasm about it too, because he was
visibly hurt by my caviler answer.
“Who?” he asks.
“ELP came out with this very new,
almost orchestral album that took off like a rocket waay back then.
The song we just listened to ripped off some of their riffs and
style...I have heard this kind of music before.”
It was not new to me, but new to him.
That's the difference and that's where the source of irritation the
young hold against the old. We've been there in some fashion or
another and we're not surprised or wowed anymore. If I've had Thai
food for years and you just discovered Vietnamese, then trying to get
me to be as enthusiastic as you at your new
discovery, ain't gonna work.
Can you tell that I'm not a parent in
any way shape or form?
But. And a big BUT. I'm not going to
stand in the way of their personal discoveries. The road is theirs
to travel. I try not to dissuade or cheerlead.
There's another story about two seeming
20 something lesbian's making out in front of us 40 year old guys at
the Celtic a few years back I ought to tell too. Perhaps I'll tell
it later, it'll just take a few paragraphs. The same moral of the
story is in that one too. “Been there, Done that.” I'll entitle
it, “Every Generation Thinks They're the First to Discover Sex.”
My fortieth birthday? So.what. It was
no mile marker to me. The only surprise was that I was numerically
40.
And now nine years later, here I am!
I've reached that point where I look
back on things, how the arc of my life bent this way or that and
understand it better now. I find that I can't help but do this. I
have been told, by those much older than me, that I'm reaching that
point where reflection is automatic. I'm told I can't help but to
think back and look upon my own path, why I chose this direction and
not that one. You see, none of us can see too far ahead into the
future. You make your best educated guess and go from there. You do
your course corrections as outside influences (and inside ones you
are barely aware of) force you to change direction. You may get back
on course...or need to change it altogether. That's a living, working
reality.
Each year that creeps by gives me
another course load on Life. I'm attaining my PhD in it in small
lengths. You gain a larger perspective on it all as the days tick
off. When I was younger, people and their actions confused the hell
out of me sometimes. Not so much anymore. Also, I tend to let a lot
slide when it comes to peoples' ability to FUCK UP royally. When you
take a perspective on their lives, try to walk in their shoes, you
ease off using the judgmental club on them. But also, I've learned
to wear a CDC environmental suit around those who would spatter their
smallpox laden life of mistakes on me.
Tune in in fives years, should I still
be here and hear another update!
*****
Ok, here's the lesbian story, since I
mentioned it and you want to hear it...
Mike, John and I were sipping our beer
one night when two very young girls come into the bar. The place was
fairly empty at that time of night and they sat close enough to us. I
would guess three chairs away. It wasn't long before they decided to
put on a show.
The two start making out at the bar. Ok
fine. I don't care what people do with their lives as long as they
don't dump it into my backyard and screw my life up. You like raping
sheep? Fine, rape them all! Please just leave me out of it! I would
hope others would extend me the same favor.
But, as these two were going at it, the
pig faced one (yes, she wasn't all that pretty) kept turning around
to see if we 40 something guys were staring. She'd go back to
sucking face, turn around to gauge our reaction, then back to it.
We guys, were goofing on the fact she
was trying to get a rise out of us older men who OBVIOUSLY never have
heard of lesbians. You see, at a young age, any man or women who's
around your parents age...ARE your parents and must be treated as so.
They are ignorant, unskilled and stupid.
Finally, I have to say something.
“Hey, (and I'm addressing this to pig
face) you think what your doing is new? That we've never heard of it
or seen it?” Mike and John, who are sitting next to me, start
giggling under their breath. It was the kind of giggle that says “Oh
shit..he's gonna do it!”
Miss Piggy gives me a snarl.
“I suppose you think of yourself as
sexually free, right?” She doesn't answer.
“If you are that sexually liberated,
then you can show me something I've NEVER seen before...(dramatic
pause)...Fuck a dog in front of me...I've never seen that live!”
Mike gets up to “use” the bathroom
real quick. John openly starts laughing.
She finally has to say
something...'That's GROSS!”
“No it's not,” I say, “sexual
liberation is about doing anything! Why judge?
Why come down on that? People should be free to be who they are and
experiment ALL the way!”
I pissed her off. She dragged her nicer
looking girlfriend to back room, probably saying “Fuck you” under
hear breath the whole way.
I'm sorry...there are times when I
shoot my mouth off, but I can't help it.
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