Portrait of the Artist as a Young Geezer
Last week I observed my 49th birthday. I say “observed” because I don’t really celebrate my birthday anymore, although I do enjoy the free meals and gag gifts that come with it. My birthday is no longer the orgy of joy it was when I was, say, six. I stopped “celebrating” it around age 29, when the occasion seemed to become a reminder of my fading dream, which was to win a Nobel Prize for… something. And after 40, each birthday merely seems to tick off the quickening march toward the grave. Perhaps a sense of birthday joy (or at least gratitude) returns in old age, at which point you’re simply grateful to wake up to see another day, preferably not soaked in your own urine.
This year my birthday fell on a Tuesday, and I was tense all day at work, fearing that some cheerful person would tell me I was 49 years “young,” and then I’d have to punch him or her in the face, because I despise such clichés. Not that I feel old—quite the contrary—but 49 is not young. (And be forewarned, friends and coworkers—next year, if you decorate my home or my workspace with black balloons when I turn 50, I will kick your asses.)
It just dawned on me that I’m kind of middle-middle-aged, with geezerhood and AARP membership just over the horizon. I normally don’t think much about my age. I don’t have the usual landmarks that most people have to remind them they’re getting older—a spouse aging beside me, or children growing up and leaving home. I still think of myself as being vaguely thirty-something. When I look in the mirror, I wonder why my forehead is starting to look like a sharpei’s butt, and why it looks like a hundred crows have been nesting on the corners of my eyes. And then I remember… oh yeah, I’m almost 50.
There are certain environmental clues as well. I’ve never exactly been a chick magnet, but younger women at least used to return my smiles in passing. But now if I smile at a 24-year-old female store clerk, she looks at me as if I just stepped off a playground dressed in nothing but a trench coat and asked her for sexual favors. And then it hits me that I’m old enough to be her father. My God, that’s depressing!
I suppose I’ve been in denial about aging for some time. When I meet a woman my age accompanied by her adult daughter, it’s the daughter my eyes are drawn to. (And again, I’m talking only about adult women here. I am not Warren Jeffs.) In my defense, studies have shown that men are genetically programmed to be attracted to younger women to ensure the propagation of the species and the sale of swimsuit calendars. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.
Like our culture at large, I have schizophrenic feelings about aging. Our society both demonizes and romanticizes aging. Pop culture primarily shines its spotlight on the young, beautiful and stupid. When the media portray seniors in a positive light, it’s usually in advertisements showing smiling silver-haired couples energetically bicycling up the side of Mount Everest after consuming some vanilla-flavored slurry fortified with vitamins and, judging from it’s magical energy-producing effects, bull testicles and tiger penises. The overall message is that it’s fine to grow old… as long as you stay in shape and don’t look or act old.
Aging is admittedly not an aesthetically pleasing process. Take hair migration, for example. For men, hair can begin migrating away from the head in early adulthood. Later in life, it starts sprouting in new places, such as on the back or on the ears. I even have a single silky blond hair that grows out of the bridge of my nose. Trying to pluck it when it becomes visible is an eye-crossing and time-consuming challenge. And a few random hairs have begun to sprout out the rims of my ears. All I can say is, thank God for Gillette razors. A male acquaintance of mine has more hair growing on and out of his ears than I ever had on my head. In between earcuts, he looks like a cross between Mr. Spock and Yoda.
Gravity stops being your friend as you get older. It tugs at the face, the belly, the boobs, and every other part of the body as it tries to pull your eyeballs to the ground. I only weigh a few more pounds than I did when I was 20, but it’s distributed a bit differently.
And there’s the mental/emotional side of aging. Remember the old adage that says with age comes wisdom? Me neither. To me, age brings memory loss, confusion and anger at things I don’t understand. If I can’t remember where or put my car keys or whether I zipped my fly, how can I be expected to spout something wise? And my temper is getting shorter. Before long I may be shaking my fist at the neighborhood kids and yelling “Get off my lawn!” even though I don’t have a lawn. On the plus side, as the road ahead gets shorter, you tend to learn what’s worth fretting over and what isn’t.
Clearly no one relishes the thought of getting old and decrepit. As I move deeper into middle age and beyond, I hope I can learn to age gracefully. There are good role models to follow. Just look at Mick Jagger. That’s an unpleasant thought, I know. He’s 65, looks 80, yet still prances around on stage as if he’s 25. I’d kill to be as fit as Mick, and I respect him for not ever having a face-lift. And if he has had a face-lift, he should sue his plastic surgeon. Also, Hillary Clinton and John McCain are fine examples of how to age well. At 60 and 71, respectively, they both made it through grueling presidential campaigns for well over a year without keeling over. The truly amazing thing is that McCain may already be dead and not know it.
I will try to emulate these role models, and not people such as actor Mickey Rourke, who looks as if he’s had his face replaced with a latex Halloween mask that’s been left melting in the sun on a dashboard. I hereby resolve to do my best to age gracefully and naturally, and to embrace my crow’s feet and age spots as signs of character, and my slowing mental faculties as a sign of… what’s that word?
