THE VIEW FROM THE WINDOW

I’ve previously mentioned that most mornings I hear snap, crackle and pop. No, I don’t eat a lot of Rice Krispies, it’s the sound of my body getting out of bed. Knees, feet, back, legs… I don’t even know where all the different sounds come from anymore. With each year I get older the cacophony of noisy body parts is almost louder than my reflexive audible grunts and ‘umph’s that seem to accompany standing up these days. The crazy thing is I am pretty darn active and healthy; I can only imagine what would come out of me otherwise. I better keep working out because I don’t think anyone at work would appreciate if every time I stood up I uncontrollably loudly grunted like Maria Sharapova making a backhand slam.

The same way things always seem to start going wrong, almost to the day, right after a warranty expires, not so subtle negative changes in my body started to become more obvious after I hit 40. Now that 50 is barreling in for the kill faster than then a slick Hoveround electric wheelchair salesman at a wealthy retirement home, I fear my body is again starting a new round of break-downs. I’ve never heard that the changes at 50 are that bad but if the memory is one of those things that starts conking out at this age, no one would remember to tell me about it.

I like to compare my body to an 18 year-old fairly well maintained car. It will work just fine most days but sometimes when you least expect it you turn the key and nothing. Repairs seem to be bigger and more complex with obscurely named parts breaking down at a higher frequency. Like that old car, my body for the most part still does what I want it to do, it just takes a lot more time and a little more coddling and a little more expense dedicated to upkeep. It sure as hell does not turn any heads on the street anymore and it does not handle like it did in its prime but I broke it in right and have kept it tuned up inside and out, so it is more reliable than not. It’s just when there are a lot of little annoying things wrong you always worry that the big repair like a transmission or hip replacement surgery is just around the corner.

Things like my high cholesterol and potassium levels that my doctor found during my last physical I can control myself. The frustrating one torturing me right now is my sudden vision issue. It’s like someone turned a switch since my last eye exam and moved that big ole’ ‘E’ on the top of the chart 10 feet further away. Even with my contacts or glasses I am having trouble reading anything in a dim light or virtually any small print. I assume bifocals and reading glasses are in my immediate future. Those things just sound so Grandpa-ish but I guess a lot of men turn into grandpas in their 50s so it’s not really that out of line.

I don’t walk around everyday thinking to myself ‘man I’m old’; in my head I’m just the same young guy. I recall talking to my Mom when she turned 70 and she said the same thing (except she did not say guy). Instead it seems to sneak up on me in the form of little reminders. Like when I have to embarrassingly ask my wife to read the small print on some package because I have run out of arm-length and facial contortions without being able to make it out.

I have glanced at an old high school friend’s current picture on FACEBOOK and thought whoa they are looking old but they just as easily could do the same thing to me. The thirty years of dealing with the real world since graduation has taken its toll on all of our fresh youthful faces. Back when those photos were taken we were all ready to take on the world, now the world has taken us on and in some cases has jumped all over our checks and foreheads like a skier repeatedly shushing down a once pristine slope.

The other night I was talking to my Dad who is approaching his mid-80s, and he was very happily telling me that he found something to finally help the severe back pains he’s been experiencing. I thought maybe a doctor had recommended a new pill and exercise or that one of his back surgeries finally worked, but it was decidedly more low tech and to me more depressing. He started using a walker. I was thrilled that he is not in pain but the thought of this big larger than life strapping guy that into his 70s was still going on canoe camping trips and climbing up onto the roof to do his own home repair, this man that seemed so indestructible to me was now using a walker just seemed incongruent. Or really what it did was make him seem his actual age to me. And he, like me, are getting older.

None of this is a surprise. It’s not like someone like me, whose brain is always racing about over-analyzing things, suddenly jumped from 20 to 49 without giving a thought to aging. There really is only one aspect that has caught me off guard and that is the seasons of death. I remember when my Dad was in his 50s his two closest friends died within the same year. He took it pretty hard. I’m sure that mix of newfound loneliness and realizing your own mortality got to him. He again has experienced that same situation two more times. My parents say that is one of the hardest things about being in your 80s is the isolation of outliving everyone you could relate to and socialized with. The folks that understand what shaped thier era are gone.

Now with more frequency my friend’s parents and uncles and aunts and siblings are dying. Friends and peers are passing more often too. These things seem to come in waves like seasons of death. Those fresh faces in the High School yearbook turning creased and worn like the pages of the book itself. I found myself staring out the hotel window when my wife and I were in New Zealand last month just trying to take it all in. It used to be when I was in a new place I would study the landscape and think of whom I would share this with in the future. Now the ever-present thought is I better take it all in because my eyes will never see this again.

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life dodging death’s long shadow; afraid the weathered car will blow a rod around the next curve and be forever parked on the side of the road. So the game plan is to keep myself healthy and continue to live what I got left to the fullest. Personally, I am not planning on going anywhere anytime soon so I would appreciate if y’all took care of yourselves too because if you are reading this far into this thing I probably care about you and would prefer you dodging the next few seasons death and hanging along for the ride with me. It’s like that line in the Stan Ridgway song where he compares his life to a car ride and it just “feels like were little more than halfway there.”