Aaah, the joys of aging. HA! I once saw a bumper that says it well. That unforgettable piece of mobile philosophy said “The Golden Years Suck”.
We geezers, who were once robust and vigorous and who had bodies with some noticeable form now have a considerably changed perspective. We, as individuals, are shrinking. Yes, shrinking, as in getting smaller. This process happens so slowly as to be unnoticeable, until it’s too late to even try to do anything about it.
When you walk down the street or walk around a store, you see old folks wearing clothing that must have come from a thrift shop because it hangs on them like a curtain. Well, believe me, those clothes actually did fit perfectly at one time. That frail looking oldster was once able to fill those clothes beautifully and they were able to stand completely and proudly erect also.
We geezers are almost a parody of what we once were. We sure as the dickens didn’t plan to look this way. What we have done to ourselves is to spend the major portion of our lives working our butts off. The wear and tear eventually takes its toll. We don’t wear out on just one end like a pencil does, we lose a bit here and a bit there and we begin to wither away a bit at a time. So just like all preceding humanity, if we live long enough, we get smaller with time. This process is a tiny bit like the very unwelcome shrinking that sometimes happens to a favorite garment, once it’s done, there is no undoing it. We are just plain stuck with the result.
I cannot speak for the gentler sex, but I can say for sure that it is a shock to walk past a full length mirror and see some stooped, worn looking old man looking at me. The first time that happened, I had to take a hard second look just to see if I had seen some nightmare. That nightmare just creeps up and hits us between the eyes, with no mercy. I have to assume the ladies are no happier to see their version of that. The shock of having to face this reality is, perhaps, why old folks walk around shaking their heads as though they are saying “No, dear God, that can’t be me!”
It is embarrassing to make a purchase at a store and have some smiling child of twenty offer to carry out my small parcel and to hold the door for me as I leave the building. So, I am now shrunken to the point of having young people feel sorry for me. That is oddly upsetting, especially because I actually appreciate it in my own little shrunken way.
There are a few compensations in all this. We geezers get nice discounts at restaurants and at car parts stores. We get lifetime passes to National Parks and we are actually helped through all that horrid screening process at airline terminals. There are also some benefits in belonging to AARP. I believe I can speak for many, if not all, other geezers in saying I’d give it all up in a quick minute to be able to once again have a fifty three inch chest and eighteen inch biceps and to regain the three and a half inches of height that evaporated somewhere along the line. I wouldn’t mind being able to bench press three hundred pounds once again. Instead, I have to plaintively call “Honey, please come help me with this big bag of dog food”
I suppose it’s all a matter of perspective when you get right down to it. We geezers have to live with the fact that our horizons have shrunken to match our shrunken abilities and shrunken energy reserves. I suppose we should view ourselves as a favorite well-worn old tool. We may have shrunken like the blade on that tool, but boy-oh-boy what a magnificent journey it has been.
Jack Hommel
Golden Valley
