What a drag it is getting old....
I've wrapped up the last birthday I'll ever have for an age that begins with a 5. A year from now, I move on into the 6s.
That's not weird AT ALL.
Age is an odd thing. I think it was Jim Gaffigan (if not, excuse my senility) who recently said that a generation ago when someone approached 60, people solicitously guided them to a rocking chair; now, they are given a mountain bike and told to get going.
For the most part, I'm all for that mountain bike (crap, I own three bikes; I'd better be enthusiastic). But there are days when I long, a bit, for the solicitous guidance, the gentle pat on the back of my--so far unmarred by age spots--hand, and the voice to tell me to slow the hell down.
It's not that I want to get old--hell, you line me up a dozen random virgins with the promise that drinking their blood will restore me to my thirties and those bitches are going *down*--but there is a lot of balance to be sought in the reality of this point of life. I spent an hour gardening today. I went to the gym. I am fighting the good fight against the ravages of time and reality.
In the end, ravaging reality will win. Maybe not for another 20, 30 years. But we haven't found a cure for age yet.
So here I am, dancing on the balance. I can't get 30 back (for the record, no, I don't want 20--those years were still WAY too hormonal). I can't get 40. I can't even get 58.
What I've got is 59, and how to use it best. How to use it smartest. One of the most humbling decisions I ever made was buying myself a walker for Star Wars Celebration. Did I need the walker for support? Not at all. But degenerative disc disease and the inability to stand for long periods of time means that I *did* need that flip-down seat and the ability to plant my ass for the long hours we had to wait in some lines.
As a woman with a walker, I could have cruised right up to the Medical Disability station, gotten myself a special sticker for my badge, and had some advantages as far was getting into lines. I did not do this. I had a walker because I needed a doggone chair whenever I needed a chair. Not because I am disabled. I felt like taking advantage of a visible piece of equipment to get special treatment would have been dishonest.
By Celebration 2019? I might not feel that way. One of the things I did today, my birthday, was take time to get to the gym. It wasn't a great workout. But I did show up. And it means something to me. Not that I will ever be thin--because I fought for that for decades and fuck it, I end up fatter every damned time--but that I can stay mobile. I can stay able. I can keep walking, and moving, and lifting. And planting, and pulling up the goddamn weeds that will just keep growing no matter how much I loathe them. And harvesting. And reaching for the stars, howling at the moon, bursting warm, ripe tomatoes with my teeth, scrounging the dirt for carrots and onions, swinging a lightsaber in the moonlight, juggling balls my dog can't believe aren't for her, swinging on my porch swing, riding my bike through the park, dyeing and sewing fabric into new treasures for the future and just existing. On a thousand levels.
Tomorrow morning, it's editing books. In the evening, it may be plunging cotton fabric into purples and greens it never knew could exist. Or spying for that first curling sprout that promises a pound of snap peas. Or riding to the river to just listen to it sing. I have a thousand miles of everything, calling to me. Let's see whose song is sweetest.
That's not weird AT ALL.
Age is an odd thing. I think it was Jim Gaffigan (if not, excuse my senility) who recently said that a generation ago when someone approached 60, people solicitously guided them to a rocking chair; now, they are given a mountain bike and told to get going.
For the most part, I'm all for that mountain bike (crap, I own three bikes; I'd better be enthusiastic). But there are days when I long, a bit, for the solicitous guidance, the gentle pat on the back of my--so far unmarred by age spots--hand, and the voice to tell me to slow the hell down.
It's not that I want to get old--hell, you line me up a dozen random virgins with the promise that drinking their blood will restore me to my thirties and those bitches are going *down*--but there is a lot of balance to be sought in the reality of this point of life. I spent an hour gardening today. I went to the gym. I am fighting the good fight against the ravages of time and reality.
In the end, ravaging reality will win. Maybe not for another 20, 30 years. But we haven't found a cure for age yet.
So here I am, dancing on the balance. I can't get 30 back (for the record, no, I don't want 20--those years were still WAY too hormonal). I can't get 40. I can't even get 58.
What I've got is 59, and how to use it best. How to use it smartest. One of the most humbling decisions I ever made was buying myself a walker for Star Wars Celebration. Did I need the walker for support? Not at all. But degenerative disc disease and the inability to stand for long periods of time means that I *did* need that flip-down seat and the ability to plant my ass for the long hours we had to wait in some lines.
As a woman with a walker, I could have cruised right up to the Medical Disability station, gotten myself a special sticker for my badge, and had some advantages as far was getting into lines. I did not do this. I had a walker because I needed a doggone chair whenever I needed a chair. Not because I am disabled. I felt like taking advantage of a visible piece of equipment to get special treatment would have been dishonest.
By Celebration 2019? I might not feel that way. One of the things I did today, my birthday, was take time to get to the gym. It wasn't a great workout. But I did show up. And it means something to me. Not that I will ever be thin--because I fought for that for decades and fuck it, I end up fatter every damned time--but that I can stay mobile. I can stay able. I can keep walking, and moving, and lifting. And planting, and pulling up the goddamn weeds that will just keep growing no matter how much I loathe them. And harvesting. And reaching for the stars, howling at the moon, bursting warm, ripe tomatoes with my teeth, scrounging the dirt for carrots and onions, swinging a lightsaber in the moonlight, juggling balls my dog can't believe aren't for her, swinging on my porch swing, riding my bike through the park, dyeing and sewing fabric into new treasures for the future and just existing. On a thousand levels.
Tomorrow morning, it's editing books. In the evening, it may be plunging cotton fabric into purples and greens it never knew could exist. Or spying for that first curling sprout that promises a pound of snap peas. Or riding to the river to just listen to it sing. I have a thousand miles of everything, calling to me. Let's see whose song is sweetest.