Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The Getting Old Handbook

Rožňava, Slovakia
A thought about getting older.
The day you turn 50 you will become very sick all over and you will stay that way for a year or more but the symptoms will begin to slowly ease until you turn 60 when the real hurts start coming. On or before your 50th, A.A.R.P. invitations will begin flooding your mail box and you will realize you are a geezer, you are a half century old, your life has passed you by (whether it has or not), and you will be lucky just to live until the next day and have no doubt that you will never get out of bed again. Instead of remembering where the bars are located, you will be thinking about where the nearest emergency room is located, along with doctor offices and pharmacies. You won't travel streets where you know a funeral home is situated. You will start reading obituaries each morning, hoping none of your friends or old classmates are listed but if one of them is you think 'better he than me'. But, like I said, most of that slowly fades from your mind until you become 60, you have become a senior citizen entering your golden years and suddenly instead of seeing the Hammer and Sickle lurking as the great Red menace, you begin seeing the sickle in the skeletal hand as the ultimate Dark enemy and constantly looking over your arthritic shoulder to see if he has sneaked within striking distance. You may not actually see him, but you know he is there; he is is a constant dark spot at the corner of your eye which grows larger as the years go by. Your doctor says it is cataracts, but you know he is only trying to take your mind away from the impending end. You Know! Then is when Wisdom drops by for a quick beer and sandwich. Wisdom is something that comes to most people after they no longer need it. Wisdom consists of one word and that is 'oh, shit!'. Whoops, that is two words; I forgot to mention that your memory has become porous and is mostly made up of things that happened 30 years ago and those things which happened yesterday apparently didn't. You will remember the first time you had sex but probably not the last time ... unless it was 30 years ago. Life in the fast lane is trying to get to the toilet in time; your life dashes on in its headlong pursuit of comedy, error, and nap time.
----
Supposed to be near 70°F today; I am feeling much better, Sammy was here yesterday, great food and Sammy will be here Thursday, and I need to elucidate some syllables by way of the magic computer keyboard, expanding Lover.
----
Thanks to Jola for the photo; the mountains remind me much of my Unakas.
----
Have a Tuesday!
----

No comments:

Blog Archive