YOU ARE GETTING OLDER - GET USE TO IT.

LIFE DEATH AND THE HOKEY POKEY.

What is it like to grow old? You know, it may seem funny, but I don’t know. I am in my seventies, but I don’t think of myself as an old man. I look in the mirror and I see the grey hair and beard, the old man’s tits, the wrinkles on my face and spots on my hands. I know I get out of breath when I exert myself, I don’t have endurance and my balance isn’t so great; but, I don’t think of myself as old. In my mind I feel exactly like I did when I was thirty-five I am still sexual, I like new adventures, I like an element of danger – the adrenalin rush, I still feel like an alpha male; I’m a thirty-five year old with age disabilities.



The main difference is - I am aware I don’t have a future. I can’t plan ahead… I can’t say, “In a few years I will travel someplace, or I’ll get another degree and a new occupation field, or perhaps in five or ten years I will …” I don’t even buy Craftsman tools for my tool box – because you buy Craftsman tools for the long haul. This is it. This is what I have. Today is the rest of my life. I still feel like I can fight, fuck, play contact sports or run a footrace – but that damn common sense tells me I am not the man I was. Age is a disability I have to learn to live with.



I know I am smarter than I use to be. I no longer do stupid things to impress young women. I tend to view the world more holistically and less egotistically. I am better educated and have more mistakes to reflect on.



I also find I am plagued with sometime annoying short term memory retention. When I’m cooking I will walk to the refrigerator and think, “What the hell did I come over here for.” I occasionally can’t remember if I took my blood pressure pill in the morning and will have to check the pill box. But, this doesn’t bother me. I look at the brain as a hard drive with finite memory capacity. I have been downloading information to my hard drive for seventy years and I have reached a saturation point, so if I add something new, something else is automatically deleted and my computer is running slow.  Think of the things in my hard drive: early childhood memories, twelve years of public school, twenty-two years in the military, world travel, two degrees, three occupations; the list can go on and on and on – experiences – memories – adventures - people I have known. My hard drive is full.



So here I am, with the realization that I am near the end; and I have to ask myself: is the Hokey Pokey really what it is all about?

My next blog will discuss the concepts of Buddhism; which is my formula for accepting the condition of aging.   Through Buddhism mindfulness I am able to bring quality and enrichment to each day.