Getting Older

Getting Older

On the eve of yet another November birthday, my thoughts have turned to getting older. On this day I haven’t calculated my precise age, but I know for certain that I am not old. I have decided that no matter which birthday I face, I will not be old. At most, I’ll accept getting older, but not old. In our modern culture, being old is thought to mean being forgetful, losing some of one’s capabilities both mental and physical, expecting daily pain, and, did I mention about being forgetful? None of that for me, or so I’d like to believe. How can I be old when I think like I’m a teen-ager worrying about pimples?

I wasn’t even sure that I was getting older until I realized that I could correctly answer every Facebook question “What is this antique?” Ha. I knew them all. It seemed like only yesterday I was using that very thing in the garage, even though those younger Facebookers didn’t know what it was or what it was used for. It is easy to be callous about younger folks when you realize how little they know and what lies ahead for them.

The problem in our society is that the younger set doesn’t understand about aging. They haven’t experienced stiff joints, wrinkles, losing hair, poor eyesight, and a few of the other surprises that come with aging. Hell, they don’t even know about being hard of hearing. And did I mention being forgetful?

Aging has been problematic for me since I have lied about my age most of my life. It started when I was about three fingers. Whenever I was asked, “how old are you?” I always stuck four fingers in the air ‘cause it was easier, and it always provoked a laugh from those who knew better. That was the beginning of my life-long affair of shading the truth about aging.

I was still four fingers when I learned that my classmates in First Grade were all older than me. I was the youngest because my parents had sent me to Kindergarten at age four. (They must have been tired of my shenanigans and willing to foist me off on some unsuspecting teacher). Most of my classmates were already whole hand but my November birthday put me in both Kindergarten and the first several months of First Grade while I was just four fingers.

I remember my first experience with aging in First Grade when we studied the clock with its big hand and little hand chugging around and ticking off each passing moment. It took a long time, but I finally grasped the idea that age is a measure of time just like a clock measures time. I didn’t like learning about age and time from the clock. I preferred to measure time by the drip, drip, drip of passing days that ultimately led to Saturday and an entire day of playing with friends until the street lights came on. That was my world then and it hasn’t changed all that much even now since I’m still addicted to playing.

It didn’t feel right that I was the youngest kid in my class. I solved the problem when I learned to round up and advance my age. I equivocated the moral ambiguity of giving an inflated age by arguing that nobody wanted to hear I was seven years, eight months, one week and two days old. Much easier to simply round up and say that I was eight. I used that strategy for several years to gain equal status with my older pals and classmates.

This rounding up lie worked pretty well until I finished high school at age 17. All my friends were 18 and some had already begun doing things like getting married and taking on full-time, lifetime type jobs. Most of these things required completion of legal documents and honest data about age and therefore, for a brief period I was careful about stating my correct age. I got back into age-lying around age twenty. Actually, I don’t ever remember being twenty. I think I jumped from age 19 to 21, equivocating once again by using the round-up method to extreme given the obvious benefits of being 21.

By the time of college graduation and reaching the actual age of 21, I changed to using only my actual age, in other words, no rounding up since I became burdened with responsibilities that seemed to require honest age. That lasted for the next 20 years or so. Rounding up had lost its allure and I had no logical reason for inflating or deflating my age. It was only after I had become a gray beard that I once again fell into the habit of being flexible about my age if it seemed appropriate. The difference this time was that being younger offered more than being older. Some may consider my revised behavior duplicitous, but it seemed only fair to me. After all, had I not been adjudged to have been older than my actual years for the first 20? It seemed only fair to even the score a bit and lower my age to make everything come out about even. Although I might have been 49 years, eleven months and three weeks old, if the occasion seemed appropriate, I reported my age as 49, not 50. This was especially useful when I was the most senior person in my work group of engineers. Sometimes, I may have even reported that I was in my ‘late forties,’ not 49 and certainly not ‘almost 50.’

Now, here I am on the eve of a 75^th birthday. Inflation or deflation of my age is a distant memory. Instead, I am more likely to yield an incorrect answer to the age question, not because I want to be either younger or older, but because I have forgotten –did I mention this seems to be one of the common foibles of aging. I am now more careful about my age since I certainly don’t want to lose a year.

I choose to think of my birthdays not as a penalty but as an award for having ACHIEVED an advanced age; having avoided the troublesome hand of fate that sometimes hits you in the face for no apparent reason. Sure, I’ve lost a step or two in the life’s race as indicated by a notable lack of hair, the recent acquisition of hearing aids, and other changes not worth mentioning. And next month, just as my birthday rolls around, I expect to be the proud owner of a new hip, this one made from metal and hopefully the source of a smoother jaunt across the pickleball court and down the road on foot or on skis. I also expect it to alleviate a little discomfort that has followed me around for the last two or three years.

Regular discomfort seems to be a common feature of aging. My similar-aged friends and I routinely discuss our aches and pains at our morning coffee. Each of the old coffee drinkers has one or more issues that he can discuss at length. One of my friends complains regularly about his periodic gastric issues. He summed it up yesterday with a pithy announcement following a detailed dissertation about his bowel problems. “Everything I eat turns to shit,” he said.

I expect he and my other older buddies are not much different than me and other oldsters around the North Woods. We take our aging seriously, and we try to make each day count, although sometimes we can’t remember just which birthday we are celebrating and when the next sock hop will be announced. They still have those, don’t they?