No matter how hard we try to stop time, whenever the calendar turns, we become a year older than the last time around … whether we like it or not.
When I was a little guy, I thought that becoming 21 or 40 or some other number like that would be really cool. I could be independent and have a car and do what I wanted, whatever that was. Now, I don’t remember much about being either of those ages.
All the times I went fishing and hunting and had babies and they graduated from here or there and life just went on. Now here we are looking at another new year.
And the problem with New Year’s resolutions is that I remember making a bunch of them, it’s just that I don’t remember what the resolutions were. Probably something about losing weight, which makes sense because I need to do that and so far that resolution is like an old friend, it keeps hanging around.
So … Happy New Year! Tick. Tock. We’re older.
On the inside everything looks and feels the same as when I was younger, except I’m not. There is less energy. Not that I feel tired, it’s just that I don’t feel like jumping up in the air, skiing at breakneck speeds, being jarred by an over-the-top upside-down roller coaster ride, playing rough-and-tumble football with our 6-foot-something grandsons, or, as my wife reminds me, overdoing it (whatever that means).
Food is different as well. As a younger person, I could wolf down my food lickity split. Now I try that, and my gut feels like it’s eating me alive that day, maybe the next day too. And spicy and rich foods still taste as yummy as they once did on the way down, but to keep them there, and from reappearing sooner than expected, I have to take a chaser of antacid or Gas-X, maybe both.
There was also a time when I could eat about anything and still maintain my weight. What was the rule? Fifteen calories times the weight I want to maintain? Let’s see, if I wanted to maintain a weight of 150 pounds I could eat 2,200 and some calories. Now if I eat that much, I start to look like the Goodyear blimp, filled with gas and all.
My doctor has become a gaggle of doctors, and my bottle of aspirin has become a mini-pharmacy. Keeping track and ordering all this stuff is a confusing and frustrating part-time job.
Young women. Being careful here as I speak as a happily married man, but young women still look as good as they did when I was their age, but the drives aren’t the same. And while they looked really good then, they sure look younger and younger these days.
Just like going to the movies. It’s still a treat, especially if I can stay awake through the entire show, without “resting my eyes” for a few minutes now and then. And TV, well the good shows are all on after 9 p.m., so kiddies can’t get a glimpse of adult material. Great idea. But it excludes some of us adults since 9 p.m. is about the time my wife and I run out of steam.
And even if I work hard at doing all of the right things my doctors told me to do, I’m still getting older.
There is nothing more sobering than looking in the mirror after a nice hot shower. Who knew skin loses elasticity? That there is something called jowls? Is a double chin really two chins? And some of the hard muscular parts of my body (read tummy) are now soft and kinda mushy.
Hair is a good example. For a lot of men, losing hair through male pattern baldness is a shocker. When I lost my hair at 18 due to an excess (get this) of testosterone, it was difficult for me to come to grips with it. But, now that I’m older I’m finding what I lost, just in different places. It’s now in places I never conceived to be possible. Ears. Nose. Thick eyebrows. I can only imagine what it’s like for women. If you don’t know what I am talking about, you’re in for a big surprise.
Then there is the thing about thinking. The whole process might stay intact. But the difference is often like a new computer and an older model. The new one is instantaneous and stores everything imaginable. The older one is a little slower. And you have to wait on it to locate the information for which you are searching. The new computer is fast to program. The older model is already full of stuff and doesn’t accept new programming very well.
It’s just not fun.
There is a country song by Miranda Lambert. Some people might not know Miranda and her country music. She was married, until she wasn’t, to Blake Shelton, who is a cowboy singer and judge on the Voice on NBC (which I have also been known to sleep through because it starts about the time I am winding down). Well, the name of the song is “Gravity is a B—-“.
I recommend the song for those without tender ears, because it has a few choice words in it for getting older.
Miranda sings about how when you are in your 20s, you feel like you are walking on the ceiling. In your 30s, your feet hit the ground. By your 40s, you are hanging over, and you are starting to look like all your friends. In your 50s, you could be feeling better. But it all comes home in your 60s, with bags appearing under your eyes, bigger hips and bigger thighs, and places you can’t even itch. You just can not beat it, because, you know, “gravity is a b—-”.
I don’t know what Miranda would say about the 70s, 80s and 90s. I do know that it’s an eye-opening experience, but it beats the alternative.
I guess we should just be grateful for what we have, for the chance to live in God’s Garden of Eden, and hope that we have lived well, accomplished his purposes for us and left things better than we found them. Here’s to another year racing by.
Happy New Year. Tick. Tock.
Bill Gindlesperger is a central Pennsylvanian, Dickinson College graduate, Pennsylvania System Of Higher Education (PASSHE) Governor, Shippensburg University Trustee, and Chairman of eLynxx Solutions. eLynxx software coordinates and drives communication, specifying, approval, procurement or production, reporting and activities necessary to obtaining direct mail, marketing materials, promo and all other printing. He is a board member, campaign advisor, successful entrepreneur, published author and commentator. He can be reached at [email protected].
