Monday, July 7, 2014

Getting Older

Somewhere down the line I got old.

Oh, sure. We grow older each day. But I became painfully aware of it last week. I turned 54 Sunday. Fifty-four! It's a scary age because I realize that after more than half a century of living, I've yet to turn out like I had hoped. And it's way too late to begin trying now.

If I was a piece of furniture, I'd be appearing on Antique Roadshow and the host would evaluate me poorly. If I were a car, I'd be a classic, but I wouldn't run all that well. There are the aches and pains I notice now when rolling out of bed that weren't there years ago. When the weather changes and rain approaches, my knees are the first to notice the barometric change. They begin singing operatic arias about 12 hours before precipitation falls.

When you're a kid, time is not relevant. At that age, life seems to be an endless stream of days and nights; one bleeds into another and the procession is not really that noticed. But get older and the days start speeding up. They tend to look like those movie effects where pages of a calendar fly off and signify the speedy passage of time.

Yes. I'm old. Mentally, though, I maintain the maturity of a 13-year-old. I still laugh at fart and poop jokes. Really laugh at them. And therein lies the problem. I maintain the mentality of a child, yet wanted life to turn out a bit better. Maturity is apparently fleeting in my world.

All that to say this year's birthday hit a little bit harder. You can only spin your wheels so long. I'm actually wondering about retirement, and getting senior discounts at local restaurants. It used to be when I'd buy a beer at a store, I'd joke and ask if cashiers needed to see my identity for proof of age. They used to laugh. Now they look at me aghast. “The old guy isn't even funny,” they think.

And, the APBA game factors into aging. A week into my 54th year, I'm juggling playing the 1950 baseball replay and last year's hockey season. Suddenly, time becomes an issue. I have several seasons still to replay — in all four major sports — and I'm wondering if I will live long enough to complete them all. I guess all replayers contemplate that at some point. Can we outlive all of our projects? Mortality is now based upon our ability to finish our games. Life, really, had become a roll of the dice.

It's depressing thinking of the aging process and how things just didn't work out like I had hoped when I was younger. It's kind of a downer and I think I can only be brought out of the funk if someone tells me a poop joke.

2 comments:

  1. Isn't life grand, when you have a never ending list of APBA related projects to do from today until the end of your time. There are certainly worse things in life to worry about.

    and.......

    Bernie goes to a grocery store. He finds cat food at special prices. He picks a dozen cans of cat food and goes to check out. The Manager gets suspicious. He thinks that this guy cannot have a cat and will probably feed cat food to his kids. He asks Bernie to show him his cat before he could let him have cat food. Bernie goes home and returns with a cat and gets to buy the cat food.
    Next week Bernie finds dog food at special prices. He picks a dozen cans of dog food and goes to check out. The Manager again gets suspicious. He thinks that this guy has a cat but he cannot have a dog and he will probably feed dog-food to his kids. He asks Bernie to bring and show him the dog before he can let him have dog food. Bernie goes home and returns with a dog. He gets to buy the dog food.

    Next week Bernie comes to the grocery store with a bag. He asks the manager to put his hand in the bag. The Manager puts his hand in the bag and immediately takes it out. He shouts at Bhola: "What! There's nothing but doodie in this bag!"

    Bernie calmly replies: "Yes, and I want toilet paper"

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  2. I've had friends who tell *lots* of poop jokes--- in fact, they speak of little else. It used to offend me, but now I just kind of go with it & joke right back --- because I found that yes, strangely, it can improve one 's mood. So I get that. :)

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