I’ve realized recently that I’m rapidly approaching fogey-hood, and I have nothing to show for it. I’m simply older; not wiser, not more experienced, not more distinguished. Just older. As I rapidly approach the beginning of my 23rd year, it’s more and more obvious that it’s all going downhill from now on. Why now instead of my 22nd or 21st year? Well, it all started when I fell, just like when someone refers to an “old” person falling. There’s no good reason (I tripped on a baseball bat too many days ago, a product of my halcyon days of youth, a not too metaphorical symbol of the way my youth consistently laughs at me.), and just like with old people, my shoulder, which was what broke my fall, still hurts. The pain will go away but not the memory of practically being on my way to re-enacting an “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” commercial. In fact, I should probably invest in one of those emergency signal senders for when it happens again.
Hunter with Gun = bat, dead buffalo = me. That’s right, it’s metaphor week at emptybookshelf.com
And of course, There are the inevitable “hair” issues, whether its turning gray or being on its way to Costanza-itis. Gray isn’t distinguished, it’s just gray, especially in splotch form. Granted, it’s not there yet, but it will be. Next is arthritis; being that I already have a re-made knee, it will likely be ground zero for the future infestation. Even for my (also aged) peer group, the now less-than-annual football games create nothing other than increasingly serious injuries and weeks of recovery instead of the day or so of not that many years ago. (In other news, if anyone wants to see or participate in an age-based train wreck, come out to the South Mountain/Dodd athletic field on the Friday after Thanksgiving. That’s Nov. 25 for those of you who don’t believe in taking advantage of Indians.)
Getting Older receives one-and-a-half stars due to its inevitability, intransigence, and, uh, in-sucktitude. Why not zero stars? Well, I’m sure that something as omnipotent as aging has a lot of say in the karma department, so I don’t want to make it mad this early in the game.
4 responses to “Getting Older”
Dan, I think you’ve got it exactly right. Getting old is probably a bad thing indeed, although that’s not something I’ll ever be able to get back to you on – I’ve decided to “jump ship” so-to-speak at the ripe old age of 22.
Just kidding, God. But seriously, that image is using a relative path so it fails to load in my feed reader.
Ahh…that’s why they never show up in my/any RSS readers…
Thanks.
[…] October 10th, 2006 Dan (Ripping off of 1/3 of Adam’s title from last fall) The MD: Tell me about the pain in your back. Me: Well, I can stand up and lie on my back just fine. The MD: Okay, good. Me: But everything other than that feels like the end of the world. The MD: Oh, that’s not good at all. Me: Yeah. A bit less than a year ago, I wrote a little review about getting older, specifically some unrelenting shoulder pain. Well, that was just the tip of iceberg compared to this one. (And all things considered, it hurts so much that it’s not really a laughing matter at this point). Doing nothing stupid, out of the ordinary, or what I’ve not done lots of time before, I managed to make myself bedridden by the simple act of bringing my groceries inside. The only significance of the problem-causing event was that it could be construed as if I had made an awkward motion and tore a muscle at the small of my back. (the ‘could-be-construed as’ part being the awkward motion, not the torn muscle). You choose the caption: 1) Not exactly bringing sexy back. 2) Hehe, you said T12. An awkward motion… the red-headed step child of reasons for (relatively) serious injuries. Similar to last year’s much less serious pain, the type of thing that only happens to the rapidly aging and rapidly aged. Not to steal Adam’s joke completely, but I’ve expected much more from my back than going out in such a girly way. (for those that say, but you were born in November, wouldn’t that be the beginning of model year 1983? Not this guy; it’s becoming more and more obvious that I was old stock, made from parts whose lifespans were already one year short due to sitting on the lot for so long. Sure, my back has serviced me well so far, but with my life expectancy being somewhere around 77 bitter years, it’s awfully early for the frame to have gone bad (one of the axles is already shot). But man, it hurts. I’m normally a big fan of the small of the back; it’s just so …. useful. But not now. It feel like it’s where North Korea did yesterday’s bomb testing. (how’s that for a needlessly topical joke). Oh it smarts real good. The Human Back (Model Year 1982) receives one-and-a-half stars due to its not even lasting half of an expected lifetime before (relatively) serious failure. (No, I’m not being dramatic: being unable to go to work or even do anything other than lie down or stand up shows that the body part has failed, at least temporarily. If someone were unable to attain consciousness, the brain is considered to have failed.) The meager 1.5 stars come from the sort of trouble-free past years of use. […]
[…] Sorry to be late, but the best to you in 2007! Love, Peggy and Gordon end of letter The 2006 Fuller Christmas Letter receives three stars. There was nothing patently untrue or unnecessarily subjective in it, thoughthe details which make my life more difficult (such as the whole putting the ‘works in China’ part before ‘for a few weeks each year’) makes my Christmas season filled with too many conversations that start with “So, Dan, I hear you’re in China most of the year” then me following with, “well, I’m there less than two months per year…I’m in the US most of the year.” Minor grammatical quibbles aside, it provided a fair update of the Fullers for 2006AD. I’ve never been known for my punctuality, so I cannot deduct any points for the fact that the cards will be going out during Epiphany instead of Advent/Christmas. […]