"When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now, will you still be sending me a valentine? Birthday Greeting? Bottle of wine? If I stay out till quarter to three, would you lock the door? Will you still need me? Will you still feed me when I'm sixty four?"
- The Beatles, When I'm Sixty Four

"I'm not getting old. I'm getting old-ER."
- George Carlin

"What a drag it is - GETTING OLD."
- The Rolling Stones

"Your mind plays tricks on you."
- Bill Cosby (49)

February 15th, 2004

I remember the instant I stopped being young.

Three years ago on my birthday I was doing a routine stairmaster workout and I remember being mid way through it and thought, "I'm so tired. Is this what happens when you turn 35?" I was sweating profusely. My heart felt like it was going to erupt from my chest and I was sporting the ever so charming scent of "L'Air de Garlique". My ankles hurt from walking in the wrong kind of sneakers. I had heartburn that night when I went to bed.

I'd give a fortune to feel that good again.

Last Sunday, I turned 38. In preparation for the massive ego blow of not just feeling every nanosecond of my age but looking it as well, I decided to be a bit proactive. I shaved off my goatee*. Apparently, lack of facial hair makes people look younger. So early that Wednesday morning, before going to work, I powered up the electric clippers and plowed through my facial foliage. The face I saw staring back at me I hadn't seen for at least 4 years. It was just a bit grayer around the temples with no additional wrinkles. My chin tingled after feeling air for the first time in such a long time and stung after I put the after shave on it.

I went upstairs and kissed my still sleeping wife "good bye" knowing that she wouldn't notice any real difference in the dark and while still half asleep. She'd see it that night, in any event.

I think the only thing I resolved by shaving my facial hair is that I've discovered I do not have a prominent chin and the space between my nose and my upper lip could potentially be sold as real estate. It took hours for me to regret the move I made. I figured I'd keep the look for about a month then I'd grow the goatee again.

I made it to the 10th before I stopped shaving again. Hey, it's my face and I have to live with it.

Getting older isn't fun. At least it isn't fun for me. One of the more disturbing things about getting older is going to the barber. I won't even get into my thinning hair. (NO, I'M NOT GOING BALD!) I still have a pretty full head of hair, I'm just starting to see a bit of thinning at the top. Not a lot, just a little. My wife says it's from wearing my baseball hat. I think I'll agree with her.

All that aside, the disturbing thing about going to the barber is that my barber likes to use a black tarp to keep the cut hairs off of me. The problem with that is my white and gray hairs show up like a neon sign on it. Every time I go to the barber I see more and more of them. The latest thing is that I see nothing but gray now when I wear a baseball cap. The good news is that my wife loves the fact I'm going "salt & pepper". As she's stuck with the fossil I'm turning into, it works out for the best. I can be the dirty old man who lusts for his woman who looks 10 years his junior.

Did I mention she's a year older than I am? It makes me smile to say that. Of course, the irony of the situation is just sickening. She is looking forward to what she calls "her croning". It's a witch thing. She looks at getting older as the accumulation of wisdom and respect. My wife and I have had this conversation many times.

"So you're looking forward to getting old?"
"Yes, I am. It's beautiful."
"The aches, the pains, the wrinkles,...."
"Yes, I look forward to the wisdom of age."
"The forgetfulness, the breath of the Grim Reaper,..."
"It's part of life."
"It's a cruel part of life."
"I want to be a wise woman."
"Sounds like you're already a wise guy."
"It's natural. You should embrace it."
"Baldness is also natural but you don't see me shaving my head."
"Embrace the natural course of things. I'm fairly certain that the Budda didn't meet with this kind of criticism."
"I have a hard time taking self discipline lessons from a man who weighed 800 lbs."
"You're impossible.... and very gray."

I think it's the gray chest hair that sets me off. At 38, seeing that is not comforting. It reminds me of old guys who like to go to the beach and take their shirts off. Half the hair is black, the other half is white. It doesn't look good. This is a message to all of you old men out there. Keep your shirt on at the beach or shave your chest. There is no middle ground.

As my wife said, the term wise woman refers to a witch who is older and more experienced. The term for a male witch who has reached the same stage is called "a sage" or "a cunning man". No, I'm not making this up. I also can't say the "cunning man" term without thinking of the Black Adder series. I can always turn to my spouse and say "I have a cunning plan that can not fail."

Another "joy of the natural progression" is the aches and pains that accompany cold weather. This happens to most people when they get older. I can tell you days in advance when it's going to rain or snow. My knees and ankles know it before any meteorologist. I asked my doctor what it was and he said it was arthritis. ARTHRITIS!!!!

Lovely.

Ask me when the last time I had coffee and greasy foods after 9:PM was. Not for a long time. Why, you ask? I GET HEART BURN!!!! I didn't have these problems when I was in my 20's. My doctor had me go through an upper GI series** to see why I was getting heartburn at night. After going under an X-ray machine and drinking a milky chalk like liquid (It came out chalk-like, too. That was an experience.) the diagnosis was a hiatal hernia. It's a small leak in a valve that causes gastric acid to burn the esophagus. This is attributed to overeating, age, coffee, and smoking. The doctor ordered diet, exercise, no smoking, no chocolate, limit on coffee to two cups a day, no tomatoes, and no orange juice. Also, it's very important that I not wear any belt too tight. Hiatal hernias are very common to people over 50.

Swell.

And not that my vision was any good to start with, but... Don't ask me to go anywhere now without my glasses. If I get to know you really well, I'll be able to recognize which fuzzy blob you are without any kind of visual aid. This became painfully clear after my parents threw a "martini party". Apparently, that's what old people do. They throw martini parties with people over the age of 60. Of course, I, being on the South Beach diet at the time, had absolutely no drinking tolerance and was drinking the same amount of alcohol it would take to incapacitate an obese water buffalo with a healthy liver. After 4 hours of seriously bad drinking and puking up my shoes into my parent's downstairs bathroom, ...and backyard, ...and upstairs bathroom, my wife took me home. I fell up the stairs to our bedroom as my wife walked Killian and Guinness, tripped and broke the laundry hamper, fell face first into the bed, got up again to puke some more, took two Advil and Pepto Bismo (my wife gave me) and went into complete and total detox.

The next morning I was ambulatory. Another wonderful thing about getting older is that bounce back time from a drinking binge is now in terms of days... not hours. I thought I'd gone blind when I realized that the actual force of my puking at my parents house threw off my glasses by the toilet. I had to call my mother to find my glasses as my wife drove me back to their house so I could see people and not animated blobs.

Bill Cosby had mentioned in his stand up (entitled 49) that his mind has started to play tricks on him and how absurd the concept was. I can affirm it's true. It's the little things like forgetting words in mid sentence. Or better yet, stop me if you've heard this one. "Honey, where's the car this time?" and "When's my mother's birthday?" Robert Fulghum speaks of a man who had Alzheimer's Disease and the upside to that was you meet new people everyday and everyday can be your birthday. He, of course, was making the best of a bad situation. As a matter of fact, the comedy in my life is that because of everything going on at work keeping me mind-fried, both my wife and my boss had suggested I start carrying a small notepad and jotting down things to not forget. Given the fact I've stopped shaving and my hair is completely out of control all I need is a cigar and a trench coat and I'll be Columbo.

"Oh, one more thing ma'am, my wife gave me this pad so I can I write these things down so I don't forget them, by the way, you're the murderer."

A sure sign you are getting older are the things that DON'T happen. For example, you know you are getting older when you stop getting calls from your buddies to help move furniture or heavy things. It is automatically assumed that "he'll throw his back out.... again." Incidentally, recovery time for mover assistance now can also be measured in days not hours. My brother-in-law knows when I've been helping other people move furniture because I call him in advance for the chiropractic visit. Usually, I'll get prepped with water massage, muscle stimulation, ultra sound, a masseuse and the obligatory back adjustment with a reservation to do the same thing the next day.

People also don't invite you to functions in the middle of the week knowing you can't really stay up past 11:PM. This is really embarrassing. I remember when I was in college and went to parties that wouldn't start until 9:PM. Now, I find myself in front of my television falling asleep at 9:30. It's sad AND pathetic.*** Before I was married, I used to go out every night after work. It was a badge of honor to go out and party on a Wednesday, be hungover Thursday morning, and know I could still be functional for work. And I'd also know that the hangover would be gone by 10:AM with some Advil. Nowadays, I make sure I don't drink coffee after 6:PM because I won't be able to get to sleep at 10:PM to get a good night's sleep. Priorities have changed from socializing to sleeping. And sleeping to me is very underrated. It's bad when my wife wakes me to say, "Did you want to go up to sleep, now?" I'll check my watch and see it's 9:30.

Nature has taken away almost everything I love to do. I can't eat what I want now, I have no metabolism. I have to get a certain amount of hours sleep or else I won't be right the next day. If I overexert myself on any occasion, that's it for the week. If I drink too much, it now takes me the better part of a week to recover. If I eat spicy foods, I'll get acid reflux that night.

My wife has suggested to me that I listen to my body. Nature is telling me what NOT to do and accept it. I can't accept this. I want my life BACK!!!! Since I've gone on the pagan path of things and started to think of things in terms of balance and nature, I've gotten more down to earth. But, in this one instance, I'm rooting for modern medical technology to come up with the aging arrest.

I know we can do it. We can make drugs and therapies to reverse aging and keep us trim and fit. I've noticed that since men run the government, Viagra got pushed through the FDA (That'll be something to look forward to. Fortunately, I have no plumbing problems down there yet.) with no problems whatsoever. Yes, technology and medicine can make old men harder than an advanced course in Particle Physics. Why not get on the ball and reverse everything else as well?

Give me a pill, no bad side effects. No aches, no pain, no baldness, or grays. I can eat what I want and keep going as the day is long.

I know we can do it. And I want to be awake for it.

* - Technically, it's a "Van Dyke". But no one knows what a Van Dyke is, so I say "goatee".

** - "GI" in this case stands for Gastro Intestinal.

*** - To be fair to myself. I get up at 5:AM in the middle of the week. Lately, I've been on 6:AM conference calls to India from home and by the time the day is over at 6:PM or 7:PM. I'm completely exhausted.