You Know You're Old When

Yeah it is the official run on gag that has managed to get many an over the hill comedian through a few more years of stage shows. In reality we all have to accept getting older because from what I have heard the alternative really sucks, well unless you have a really good theological back up plan. My theological back up plan so far to this point in my life has been getting a giggle over the fact that everyone is going to Hell and not me. Since that isn’t much of a plan for the alternative to getting older I have done my best to defy the logic of getting older.

Those that know me, know that I spend a lot of time in the gym and aside from the gray hair, and a few wrinkles around the eyes I do actually look better than I have at any year previous. It makes it a lot easier to say that I am forty five years old than it was to say I was forty years old a while back. Of course the differences in the aging process between forty and forty five were also a walk in the park compared to the aging I faced between thirty five and forty. Yes despite the fact that I had a reasonably traumatic back injury at thirty five years old, it in and of itself didn’t make me feel old, and by the time I had recovered from that I still wasn’t forty. Then I became forty, and realized that everyone who had told me forty is just like thirty were a bunch of lying mother****ers.

Almost immediately after my fortieth birthday things started hurting. By “things” I mean the things that I had never thought about before they started hurting. I could actually feel pain in my hands when I did something stupid, and up until then I was the master of doing things that were stupid and laughing it off. A paper cut was now an earth shattering event that involved a very bad need for sympathy, and that isn’t exactly something you are going to get from your children. No now I was actually in need of a new attitude which involved taking better care of myself because paper cuts were going to be the least of my problems in the coming years.

Then of course all of a sudden every bodily function I did was just that much more disgusting. No seriously, at thirty I could hack up a snot ball on the first try and then launch that thing a good thirty feet with some accuracy. At forty I was all of a sudden struggling to hack up snot balls (and more frequently needing to do it because they wrapped themselves around my vocal cords if I didn’t) and a good day was if I could spit it out without getting it on myself. You laugh but there are people in their mid forties nodding their head in muddled understanding as they read this. You can only imagine how much more disgusting and hard to deal with the functions at the other end of my body got. You’ll be happy to know I am not going there.

Yes by the time I reached forty five I was already acclimated to all of the foibles that are going on with my body. I’ve come pretty close to acclimating everyone else to the things that are going on with my body (although my wife will sleep in the other room if I am particularly gassy, and yes that is something else for you youngsters to look forward to) but I digress. All in all the only changes I am monitoring now which are a little disconcerting is that a really good day at the gym might mean that the next day in the gym is going to be a lot more difficult than it should be, but that might also mean that with age I have learned to get the most out of a workout too. At least I am still doing it.