I don’t really think about getting old or being old. Not until the weather changes and my hips start hurting. I notice that I’m walking with a limp about the same time I notice the pain.
Other times, I look down at my hands on the keyboard, illuminated by the computer screen. They're getting old. They wrinkle and crinkle like parchment or an old onion skin discarded in the trash. They’re getting older faster than the rest of me.
Or maybe they’re getting older at a normal pace and the rest of my body will catch up.
Scary stuff.
I don’t feel old unless my hips act up, and I then I curse the gods that made me allergic to every pain-reliever stronger than ibuprofen. Or unless I look in the mirror and see all the grey where brown used to be. I don’t look too often, because the brown that’s left is turning black, and I don’t even want to know what that’s about.
Most days, I still feel like that awkward teenage boy that I don’t seem to have ever outgrown.
Still, my eyesight is deteriorating. I’ve been hyper-myopic since I was 9, but now I ‘m also far-sighted these days. My night vision has deteriorated to the point that I can’t drive on anything but well-lighted streets in the neighborhood.
I suppose I am getting old, but the evidence of it always comes as a shock to me. And when I look at my hands and see that evidence in the creases and furrows, I’m shocked.
They betray me. I’m not nearly as old as they think I am. I’ll always be a teenage boy full of wonder and awe at life’s possibilities. An innocent hope that no one can kill; one that recognizes the dark side of the world but that also believes intuitively in better angels.
And I will be the same person, probably, until my ashes are in an urn somewhere.
The outside may be getting older, but the inside isn't.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
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