Category: Getting Older

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1979

A little trip down memory lane for my Phoenix peeps. I can't say with any certainty that I still have the originals, but I did have the forethought years ago to scan them…

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I'm Still 28…

…despite what my body tells me sometimes, so it's always a shock when I pass a mirror and wonder who that old fuck is and how he got into the house.

(A friend who is several years older than me, someone whom I've known since 1985—when I was 27—and I decided many years ago that 28 is a perfectly delightful age to be and that's where we're staying.)

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Quote of the Day

It's much better to age disgracefully! Take it on the chin, and roll with it. You die young, or you get older. There is nothing in between! You may as well enjoy it. My mother once said, 'Never worry about getting older. I know the thought of you being 45 when you're 25 is, Oh, my god! Who wants to be 45? But it's amazing because when you get to be 45, you'll realize it's actually very cool and you don't want to be 25 again.' And I have to say, she was absolutely right. With every age comes advantages and disadvantages. And you tend to find that you don't want to go back. You want to be exactly where you are with everything you've experienced." ~ Helen Mirren

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Fuck.

I should've realized something was up when the dogs let me sleep in until almost 5:30, even though one started making noise around 4:45 and I thought, "Please God no. I only went to bed at 12." The living room light (on WEMO plug) wasn't on. I figured it had malfunctioned, or had done a firmware update or some shit. So I got up and let the dogs out, and as I was getting their breakfast together, wondering what I was going to fix to take for lunch. I realized I didn't have anything to fix (did we not get anything at the store yesterday?) and then it hit me…it was Sunday. We hadn't even been shopping yet.

Fuck. Once the dogs were back in we all went back to bed.

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Curmudgeon

I'm really starting to hate people. Obviously not the people who are in my life either through blood, friendship, or affection, but that faceless, rude, self-centered mass of humanity that exists beyond the boundaries of my own life that I am forced to engage with.

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On Instagram "Influencers" and Getting Old

Once upon a time—not too long ago—I viewed so called Instagram "Influencers" (you know, gorgeous young men who don't seem to have an actual job other than to travel the world taking shirtless selfies in exotic locations) with an equal part disgust and envy. (Probably more envy than disgust, TBH.) But I had a sort of epiphany, and that was, "You go gurl! Work it like you own it for as long as you can. Your perfect skin, your immaculately trimmed beard, your perky nips, fuzzy pecs, sculpted abs and continually-bulging speedo may allow you to skate through life now, but they—like your youth—won't last forever. You might as well get as much out of it while you can, because one day you're going to walk past a mirror and see an old man staring back at you and wonder how he got in your house and where the last thirty years went."

Spoken like a true curmudgeon on the eve of his sixty-first birthday, amiright?

While I never considered myself good looking—even in my twenties and thirties—I still managed to attract enough men into my life whom I considered good looking, and if the technology had been available then, I too might've posted gratuitous photos of myself and my friends like the current generation is doing. I think it's something in the human psyche that allows us to pretend we're not really getting older—until something happens to slap us in the face and force us to realize we aren't going to be 25 forever. For me it was the cancer diagnosis at 45, and while I came though the ordeal for the most part intact, it did force a total psychological reevaluation of my life that allowed me to prioritize what was really important and to open a space into in my heart that Ben would eventually come to occupy; something for which I will be be eternally grateful.

Everything for a reason, as they say.

But even after that, I've remained in a certain state of denial about this whole aging thing. Even when I turned 60 last year, it was no big deal. This year, however, I'm really starting to feel those decades catching up with me. Even admitting my age on this here blog thingie is a big deal; for the last fifteen years like any proper lady, I've preferred to maintain an air of mystery regarding the actual number. But fuck it all. "I am who I am" and all that. Retirement—something I never gave much thought to (to my detriment)—is only a few short years away, a milestone that screams, "You're OLD" like nothing else.

I suppose that's where a lot of that envy of these so-called influencers comes from. I've been lucky in that for most of my adult life I'd been judged to be ten years younger than I actually was. It's still happening, (people at work thought I was in my early 50s), but when I look in the mirror or see photographs of myself, all I see is old and more and more of my father (who I didn't resemble at all when I was younger) coming out with each passing year.

Still, despite confronting that stranger in the mirror every morning, I am thankful to still be above ground, and every day that I remain so is a good one. And while I may not be shaking my booty in the clubs on the weekends or traveling the world showing off a gym-toned physique, I did have my own time in the sun, and truth be told, I did work it for all it was worth—even if I wasn't conscious of doing it.

So you go gurls. Work it. Work it for all it's worth, so when you look back on the memories it will bring a smile to your face as mine do for me.

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Is This What It Means To Get Old?

As I was crossing the street this afternoon after leaving work, I heard, "Hi Mark!" from behind me. I turned to see a middle-aged slightly asian woman coming up at my side.

"Oh hi," I said, not wanting to be rude, but also not having a fucking clue who she was.

She looked familiar, but I couldn't place a name or even come up with how I obviously knew her.

"I didn't know you worked at _____________," she said. "I thought you worked somewhere over there," wildly gesticulating in the general direction we were walking.

Since we both got on the elevator for the employee-only parking garage, she obviously worked for the same entity I did, but I have absolutely no memory of ever having met her.

Was she a current coworker whose computer issue I'd fixed and then promptly forgot? Was she a former coworker who was now working at the same place I was?

I am truly at a loss.

If I run into her again I won't play coy; I'll tell her I can't recall her name or even how we know each other…

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Want To Feel Old?

What was the first CD you ever purchased? Mine was Ammonia Avenue. (At least I think it was. At this point I'm trusting my memory of these sort of things less and less.)

From Behind the Grooves:

On this day in music history: March 2, 1983 – The Compact Disc makes its debut in the US. Research and development of the technology begins in 1974 when engineers from Philips Electronics of The Netherlands begin developing an optical audio disc designed to have superior audio quality and durability to the vinyl record. Two years later in 1976, Sony Electronics of Japan create their own prototype digital audio disc, with a 16 bit sampling rate of 44,056 hz per second. Philips and Sony Electronics begin working together in 1979 to design a new digital audio disc in a joint venture. The discs are five inches in diameter, are made of polycarbonite plastic and aluminum, and are etched with a binary code that when read by a laser turns the information back into an analog signal. The discs maintain the 16 bit sampling rate increased to 44,100 hz with a maximum running time of seventy four minutes. The first titles released by Polygram and CBS are a combination of classical and pop music titles. The format revolutionizes the music industry, surpassing sales of vinyl records and cassettes by 1985. Reaching its peak in sales during the mid 90's, CD experiences the beginning of a decade long decline with the introduction of the MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) digital format, which allows greater compression of digital audio files. This technology gives rise to illegal file shares services like Napster, Limewire and various others, allowing people to share and trade unauthorized downloads of digitized music for free. This opens a literal "pandora's box", leading the devaluation of music, and the eventual downfall of the Compact Disc format, taking with it numerous music retailers, and the virtual shrinking of the music industry itself. Though still a viable audio format, currently the CD represents only about 24% of US music market in terms of physical media sales.

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Getting Old Sucks

Yesterday, shortly after arriving at work, I noticed a rather large, gray "floater" in my field of vision. I've had floaters as long as I can remember, but this one was different. It was much larger (about the size of a fingernail at arm's length) and when I closed that eye, it would turn white—with circulating black flecks inside it. This was not normal, and of course internet searches convinced me I was dying.

My dad had a history of detached retinas, so I feared the worst and called my opthamologist. I saw her yesterday afternoon. As I described to her, it was like the afterimage you get when staring into a bright light…except it never fades away.

She dilated my eyes and looked around in them for several minutes. Turns out it is a fairly common aspect of aging; the vitreous gel (the substance "inflating" the eyeball) starts to break down as we get older, and in doing so it can pull away from the retina, causing these spots. There was no sign of tearing or separation or macular degeneration, so there's that, but it's annoying as hell because it's dead-center in the field of vision in my left eye (my dominant, "reading" eye) and because I'm so aware of it now I'm getting eye-strain headaches. "The spot may disappear completely as it migrates, or it may stay put." How reassuring.

She noted to call immediately if anything changes—especially seeing bright flashes, but otherwise it's nothing to worry about. I made an appointment to see in her in month's time to followup.

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Summer In The City

I am generally not a fan of summer.

Surprisingly, it isn't because of the 6-8 weeks of +110℉ temps we endure in Phoenix; that I can deal with. It's because of the early morning light.

As I've gotten older, my sleep patterns have become increasingly erratic. I'm almost always in deep sleep within moments of my head hitting the pillow and usually have no recollection of Ben coming to bed. Some (rare) nights I don't wake up until my alarm goes off. Other nights are a series of one hour blocks of sleep punctuated by half-to-full hour gaps of wakefulness—or a single incident of waking around 4 am and then tossing and turning until I finally fall back to sleep moments before the alarm goes off. Thankfully, most nights are usually just a single incident of getting up to use the bathroom (something I've done since I was a teenager, so no…it's not my aging plumbing) and then falling right back to sleep upon returning to bed.

I understand that sleep problems are a grossly underreported aspect of aging. I know my dad suffered as he got older, and when I was in my 30s I was incredulous when he told me he'd wake up at 3 in the morning and more often than not, struggle—or not be able at all—to get back to sleep.

I'm also beginning to understand why he had sheets of black plastic completely covering his bedroom windows.

We have dark grey curtains in the bedroom. Closing them—and the blinds behind—does an decent job of keeping the room dark at night. But at this time of year with the sun coming up so early, the room still starts getting light around 5 am. It also doesn't help that the dogs have reset their internal clocks to match the sun. They used to sleep until my alarm went off at 6; now they're crawling on top of me anywhere from 5-5:30, demanding to be let out.

I can't tell you the last time I woke up fully refreshed from a typical night's sleep. Lately it seems I'm as exhausted—or more so—than when I went to bed. The one recent time I do remember waking fully recharged and feeling good was either a Saturday or Sunday a couple months ago where I got up at the usual time, piddled around the house for an hour or so and then went back to bed, sleeping in until shortly after noon.

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The "I'm Getting Old" Starter Pack

  • "This is way too sweet."
  • "They're remaking that movie already?"
  • "My back/knee hurts."
  • "Wait, people get mad about that now?"
  • "I can't eat that, it's gonna fuck my stomach up."
  • "Hold on let me check my calendar first"
  • **turns on the radio** [groans]
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Me, Most Mornings Between 3-4:30 AM

Insomnia is evil. I have no trouble falling asleep; in fact, it's usually within seconds after my head hits the pillow. But for some reason almost every night between anywhere from 3 to 4:30 am, I wake up (usually from an intense dream) and can't fall back asleep. I start worrying about what time it is and how soon my fucking alarm is going to go off, or even if I glance over and see I've still got over two hours before I have to be awake, my mind starts racing and at that point I'm fucked.

I so envy Ben's ability to sleep for ten hours at a stretch and immediately fall back asleep if anyone wakes him up.

When I was in my 20s a trick I used on the rare instances I couldn't get back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night was to tell myself that nothing was so important that I needed to fret over it and lose sleep—especially since nothing could be done about whatever it was that was bothering me until morning anyway. If only that still worked…

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On Aging

I long for the days when the most difficult part of my morning routine was putting in my contact lenses, and the worst health issue I had to contend with were allergies and an occasional bout of tonsillitis.