She’s complaining of wrinkles. He says his limp is getting worse. Most of my friends seem to be getting old. How did that happen?
Friends I hang out with; buddies from High School; contemporaries and work peers: they all seem to be getting old. Not just older, but old! Wrinkled skin, wobbly knees, some with bellies that move their centers of gravity well forward of earlier decades.
White hair. Gray hair. Dyed hair. No hair. They are definitely looking different. Sedentary lifestyles, comfortable chairs in front of a big-screen TV. They are definitely acting different. Has the Age of Aquarius not only passed us by, but left no trace?
I remember when we stayed up well after midnight, dancing into the wee hours, drinking like Cossacks. The drugs we used were not pain killers or blood thinners or erectile enhancers — good heavens, no! We were purists and used drugs for higher purposes — generally recreational or experimental ones.
Now my friends complain of aches and limitations, of waning desires and setting dreamscapes. Nests are empty, child-rearing has yielded to baby-sitting the grandkids. Attempts at the Great Novel have morphed into runs at a readable Memoir.
What the #@%*&! happened? I just took some time to raise a family, make a career, or two, or three, and fail at an attempt to build a retirement account. Maybe having to return to trades I left after graduate school has kept me younger, or confused me into thinking I am. Maybe I must rightfully concede that I’m getting old-er. But surely, not old.
Not “old” like creaky, like bent or slow or crotchety. Not “old” like set-in-my-ways, or pursuing comfort over adventure. But I have to say, I’m beginning to notice those traits in my peer group. Should I send them all to counseling? Should I hang out with a more youthful crowd? Certainly I’m not ready to be old. The chronology must be warped: one of those time-gravity-relativity things. Can’t be me. Well, maybe my hair is getting a bit thin, and okay: a bit gray. But my inner self is still frolicking in the open meadows of “back to the land!”
But what am I going to do about my friends?