“You’re not as old as you make yourself out to be in your column, you know.”
This
from our front office guru, Donna, whose real name I’m using because
she’ll probably be thrilled that I mentioned her. (Hi, Donna!) She laid
that one on me a few weeks ago, after I had written about Fuddy Duddy
Syndrome, a condition that in fact knows no age requirements, and is
marked by the slow metamorphosis from carefree youngster to crotchety
cynic. Symptoms of this affliction include an aversion to modern pop
music, a tendency to pee more often than is strictly necessary, and a
borderline disturbing affection for warm socks. In my case, check, check
and check.
But
Donna’s right. I’m not as old as I make myself out to be. Fact is, I
just passed my 33rd birthday – still young-ish, with (I hope) plenty of
years left to do young-ish type things, like hitting the bull’s eye in a
dunk tank at a roadside carnival with a screaming fastball. (I’ve never
done this, but hey, fingers crossed.) If I can successfully avoid
contracting terminal diseases, and assuming an overall-wearing,
vodka-swilling accordion player doesn’t randomly hit me with a stolen
tractor, then I’ve likely got decades of my life left to live. Plenty of
time to put off worrying about elder-ish stuff. Ear hair, for example.
Or going deaf and cranking the volume on “Seinfeld” like it’s Def
Leppard.
There
are two reasons, really, why I’m so hung up on the aging process. One
is that there’s something darkly comic about it. I exaggerate my
age-related woes because I find them funny, at least in a quasi-tragic,
laugh-or-cry-like-a-soggy-
The
true origin of my fixation, though, probably owes to that disorienting,
early-thirties limbo in which I find myself. It’s a state in which I’m
just now starting to feel the effects of age, and how it will start
chiseling away at my young person’s faux-invincibility. Put it this way:
Ten years ago, I’d think nothing of playfully wrestling a friend to the
ground so I could apply, in obnoxious fashion, an unwanted noogie to
his head. Today, a noogie might cross my mind as an amusing whimsy, but
the practical side of my brain will say, “Whoa, pull the reins up, man.
You’re gonna tweak that thing in your back. And what’s up with your
knees? Just flick a rubber band at him and call it a day. Oh, and your
nose looks like the tip of an ancient spear.” That last bit has nothing
to do with age. My brain’s just a jerk.
This
biological foreshadowing is surely something a veteran athlete would
recognize. And the more intense the sport, the earlier a competitor will
start to feel his or her own limitations. A running back in football is
a prime example. Drafted just out of college, these thunder-thighed
freaks of nature are generally hailed for their speed, agility, and
ability to model underwear on billboards (something we just happen to
have in common). Then they hit their early thirties, and the doughy,
suit-wearing commentators in the media booth start chiming in with
comments such as follows: “Well, Jim, it’s been a productive five years
for Marcus Mugglebritches, but you’ve got to wonder how many years he’s
got left. He’s not as quick as he used to be, and opposing defenses are
starting to catch up. Plus he looks like the lovechild of Bill Cosby and
a giant sack of bird feed.” Turns out commentators are jerks, too.
Granted,
I’m not swerving and leaping my way around defensive linemen – and it’s
a good thing, too, ’cause I’d be flattened faster than you can say
“bug-eyed Armenian ventriloquist.” But I do exercise, and when you’re
used to pushing your body to its limits, you start to notice when those
limits become more ... well, limiting. For most activities, this ol’
fleshbag is perfectly serviceable, but as a running back in the NFL, I’d
be well past my prime. Let’s leave out the obvious fact that, even in
my twenties, I possessed roughly the same level of athleticism as a
drowning centipede.
Other
changes, naturally, are mental. An increased sense of civic
responsibility. An appreciation for the jazz stylings of Miles Davis. A
disturbing tolerance for the goofy tapdancers on PBS reruns of the
Lawrence Welk Show. These are the kinds of things that can be attributed
to what I’ll reluctantly call “maturation” – a state I have yet to
reach fully, given my predilection for loud bodily noises and faces
besmattered with various pies. In this sense, I may always be young; few thoughts are as
depressing as not chuckling while some poor sap is picking lemon
meringue out of his eyelashes. Still, when you glare at teenage
motorists for blasting their music too loudly, you know you’ve passed a
certain threshold.
Everybody
experiences this at different ages, of course. I’ve met 18-year-olds
that were older, in spirit, than my white-haired hippie of a father, and
I’ve met octogenarians that you’d swear were bra-snapping youths in
their swashbuckling prime. Me? I’m at a precipice. Not old, not young,
but in an uncomfortable state of in-between, clinging to the vestiges of
a bygone era while leaning full-shouldered into a fast-approaching
future. My consolation is that, given continued health, I’ve still got a
good half-century’s worth of time to mark my progress through this
weird and wild obstacle course, gray hair and ornery musings be damned.
That’s enough to make a fella feel young again.
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