dallasb32@yahoo.com
I have come
to the conclusion that I am going to have to admit something I’ve been denying
for a couple of years; I’m getting old. The signs are there no matter how I try
to ignore them. I am a month away from turning 46 and for the first time in my
life I feel the wear and tear. I am no longer a man who can dive for ground
balls on a softball field or slide head-first into a base. Even though I gave
up the game more than 2 years ago, I still, only in my mind, think I can handle
it all. And that statement in itself is another sign that I am getting old. My
mind is making contracts that my body can’t meet. It’s said that if you think
young, you’ll stay young. I’ve tried that and for the past 10 years and yes
that thought process works until reality sets in.
I guess it’s
a good thing that I can fool myself into believing that I can hang with those
young guys on the softball field. That thought stayed with me until my final
year of church league softball. A year that I began pulling muscles that I
didn’t know I had. And the need for oxygen when returning to the dugout after
running bases was just a thought that I might be out of shape instead. The fact
that I was just getting too old to play never crossed my mind.
It’s not
just softball that helped me realize I’m getting old. There are many more signs
that daily remind me. Those reminders such as the grunting noise I make when
standing up after sitting too long and the sighs I make when sitting down after
standing too long. My thought process of “think young stay young” always gets
rejected when my daughter laughs at the songs that were popular when I was a
teenager. And when I mention the name of my favorite albums when growing up she
responds with “What’s an album?” makes me realize that I am getting old. Flipping
through my college yearbooks tends to draw laughter from her at the style of
clothes and haircuts from back then. Not to be left out is the realization that
I am getting old when I hear about my college classmates’ children being in or
graduating from the same college that we once attended.
The signs
are there no matter how much I deny them. I would like to think that the
balding of my head over the years is heredity and not a sign of getting old and
the fact that I have to wear reading glasses can be blamed on heredity as well.
Rain now bounces off my head instead of soaking into a full head of hair I once
had and my arms are almost too short to read the newspaper. I give up.
So if you’re
in denial like me about getting old, just face reality. You know you’re getting
old when…… 1. You spend five minutes
standing in a room trying to remember what you went in there for 2. Your
favorite part of the newspaper is “20 years ago today” 3. Your back goes out
more than you do 4. You are proud of your lawn mower 5. You tell people that
your memory isn’t what it used to be and find that you can’t remember what your
memory used to be 6. You start saying “When I was your age” 7. Your boss is
younger than you are 8. You forget how old you are 9. You have to write
yourself notes and then you can’t figure out what the notes mean 10. You
disapprove of the clothing young people wear, and their music too. There are
many more ways to tell you’re getting old but I’ll end with 10 because it’s
time for my afternoon nap.
