“So…What’s
It Like To Be 59 ? “
01/12/13
To
my dearest, kindest friends, and wonderfully loyal readers,
(
A small dithyramb on the occasion of my fifty-ninth birthday, yesterday, at
about 12:15 p.m. )
For at least six months leading up to my birthday, I
was asked a number of times, what I, ‘thought’, about turning 59. In fact, I was asked the same question just
a day or so ago.
Both now---as then—it gave me some measure of pause
to actually consider it, and to try to make some sense out of their transient
interest, and my lingering concern.
So…what’s it, ‘like’, to be 59?
If pressed to answer honestly, dear friends, I would
have to say, “I really don’t know”.
While I realize that, biologically, I am tracing
some sort of continuous arc that—naturally—would begin at birth, and unwind
until I finally—at some, unknown time in the future—simply stop, take but a
ragged measure of breaths, and then flop over like a trout newly, ‘gigged’, and
thrown up upon the deck of some fishing vessel.
Culturally, certain birthdays are heralded by goal
attainment; reaching a particular age that supposedly separated childhood from
adulthood. Other, ‘society-implied goal
attainments’, in brief, might be: school events such as senior proms,
graduating from high school or college, securing a particular career path,
buying one’s first car, marriage, the arrival of children, the secured promotions
in both education, and career, retirement, grandchildren, being able—at last—to,
‘take it easy’, and—finally—am inescapable plunge into ill health, or senility,
the transfer into some, ‘complete care’, nursing facility, and—finally—death,
pre-attended by severe illness, pain, you name it…the accumulations of a
lifetime of illness and injury, and a time when the cells no longer divide, but
are consumed until nothing is left.
Except—perhaps—of that final, barely-alive realization that the scope of
one’s world has collapsed, and dwindled, until one world consists only of that
part of the ceiling directly over the bed that one can still see.
My dearest friends, I will allow that—of the
majority of these things—none of them are any, ‘fun’, at all. If anything, it is depressing, and limiting,
and we seem to be victims of a raw deal, having to be mortal, and—for the most
part—fragile, and insubstantial.
And so, we manage blissfully—somehow—to be so caught
up in the cascading moments of the, ‘Present’, that, ‘Being’, largely becomes
a, ‘day-to-day’, preoccupation.
Thankfully, always having to experience the, ‘Present’,
and, having an uncertain sense of memory—besides—kind of blinds us to the
greater passage of time.
Aging…and we ALL are aging becomes not so much a
process, but—rather—is marked by certain events that trigger memory.
For example, I can faultily remember having
graduated from High School, I cannot relate to, ‘that’, person in any way,
whatsoever, despite photographic references that freeze the event in time and
place.
As an example, friends, in my photographs posted at
my profile here at, ‘MDJunction’, there is a long-ago picture taken of me when
I was about twenty-five years old. I
dimly remember—now—that I was there, but, in truth, have absolutely NO
identification with the, ‘person’, in that photograph; so much so, that it is
now a stranger I see, not me.
Personally, I can more accurately identify with the,
‘Self’, who is me, only three of four days in the past, and then, not
completely.
Oh, of course we have vague indicators of the
changes that time confers, and—frankly—seems to insist upon; it is these other,
‘outside’, or external confirmations that help us know that we have changed.
I have a twenty-year-old driver’s license picture
that—again—I do not identify with, really; however, it DOES reveal that—in the
ensuing years since, my beard is grey, white, almost; I had hardly any grey
hair, or facial wrinkles, and my weight….well…we won’t even talk about that!
I do remember certain birthdays, mostly because of
their irritant quotients. My 25th.
Birthday somehow bothered me when my mother and father began to tease me that
now…I was a, “quarter century old!”.
Turning thirty-nine really, really bothered and
annoyed me. First, it caused me to
realize that—career-wise—I was stuck at the bottom.
Co-workers did not help matters as I was harassed without
hindrance that now, I would soon be forty years old. Middle aged. One foot-in-the-grave, and the other on a
rocket skateboard.
Dearest friends, I ask you to kindly consider the
greeting card industry, who seem to delight in awful, tasteless, demeaning,
horrifying, ‘jokes’, that begin to appear for someone aged thirty-nine, and
older, until—basically—they retire. But
the, ‘sex’, the, ‘senility’, the, “Grim Reaper”, jokes continue unabated, I
discovered, until (if it does happen to occur!) one reaches ages eighty, and
above.
Maybe I am odd, but I find I tend to live, to be
caught up in, and to be too preoccupied with the, ‘Present’, to really feel
much of anything.
Not having experiences many of our Society’s traditional,
‘markers’, I find I therefore have lots of time not structured by events.
I can only state with clarity that—within the past
twenty-four hours—I slept horribly (my nocturnal panic attacks having—once again—returned
in earnest). I awoke in a stark panic,
with a migraine, and hurt all-over, besides.
The Sciatica in my left leg aches so much that—in trying
to walk—it wants—suddenly—to buckle under me.
And so, I reluctantly greeted the morning by taking
extra, and extra-again pain pills, and having coffee, in order to be able to function
on some level, today.
While I do—sometimes—call-up happy memories (made
even more so by the frailty of memory), and, certainly, these, ‘please’, me, I
think I am more concerned with the near future.
My electric bill of last month interests me no not at all; I am concerned—however—with
whatever the electric bill will be this coming month, and how able will I be to
pay it.
What is, scary—because it is largely unknowable,
and, thus, can only be, ‘guessed at’, is the, ‘Future’, and for this reason, I’d
have to say (to a very limited degree), that 59 bothers me, as:
1)
Next year (should I survive), I shall be
sixty, and nothing in either thought, experience, emotions, or memories can, ‘prepare’,
me for it!
2)
It DOES make me aware that time—somehow—HAS
passed. That I will never be thirty again, or have that
much potential balance of life left to me.
Once, when I was thirteen, and at school, we were
preparing to take some sort of little test of quiz. At the top, right-hand side of my paper I had
to write my name, and—below that—the date.
Suddenly, while looking at that date, April 27,
1967, it hit me that in the year 2000, I would be forty-six years old. I could hardly imagine it, or any of its
consequences. But I did place that
thought in memory, to be remembered later, when I became forty-six years old;
to pause to try to go back through the years to that time in 1967, when I had
wondered what life would be like at the utterly astounding age of 46 !
Needless to say, my dearest friends, that thirteen
years have passed since. And I certainly
am no more the wiser, or the, ‘wealthier’, and certainly no better or worse a
person than—perhaps—when I was thirteen.
So, I guess I would have to surmise that living, ‘day-to-day’,
stuck firmly in the Present—for me, anyway—is probably the best, most honest,
and most true way to go.
But…my dear friends, and ever-loyal readers, what do
YOU think? How do you feel about
birthdays and/or the inarguable passing of time? Have certain birthdays bothered you? What are you proud of? What do you regret? Most importantly…how do you cope? Please feel quite free to leave comments,
below.
I wish for you much lessened, or, ‘no’, pain;
without want, or care. And—as always—in full
surrounded by family members, friends, and pets ( !) who love you dearly. And for as much happiness as your kind hearts
can hold!
Thank
you.
Please
know that I think of you so very often, and love you dearly!
‘Zahc’/Charles
