Being Old

WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE OLD

 

You want to know what it’s like to be old? … Okay.

It’s like your eighteen-year-old self is in the driver’s seat of a car that has seen better days. Much better days.

It works. There are parts you have to grab hold of and shake to keep them on task but it works.

You step on the gas and … well … it moves but not with the pickup you remember. Not with the urgency you want. It shudders and moans some … but it works.

The windshield is filthy and the wipers are ineffective.  However, the rear view mirror works beautifully. The sound system is phenomenal. So good, you have trouble hearing the outside world. The problem is it tunes into all channels at once. Except in times of crisis, they all play something different.

In the car with you are your father and mother and teachers and perhaps, as in my case, all the women of your life.

You’re coming up to an intersection. You’re a little lost and not certain what you should do.  Everyone in the car has an opinion. All the radio channels have an opinion. It’s like a full on fire hose of educated and uneducated opinions in the face.

“TURN RIGHT! TURN RIGHT!”

“I’ve turned theRE before. Not a good idea.”

“NO! IT’S A LEFT!”

“STAY STRAIGHT.”

You go through the intersection. Not because of the advice, not because you’re confused. But life has taught you that there will always be another intersection.

At the end of the day, you pull into your garage. Everyone piles out of the car and jabs you with pointed, guilt stakes: What you did today, what you didn’t do. What you should or shouldn’t have done, yesterday or the day before or when you were four years old.

You go inside. Sleep, a dear friend wraps his arms around you … at the most inappropriate times: Visiting with friends, talking to your wife, eating dinner, in the middle of a movie. When you lying in bed in the dark, Sleep has run off with someone else.

So, you want to know what being old is like? It’s as if you’re in an old, leaking canoe in the middle of a raging river and you’ve just lost your paddle.

It’s a trip!

 

Tags:

Leave a Reply