A View of the World of a GOLDEN BUCKEYE
Sometimes I feel that the end is near. We are given a
finite number of minutes on this planet and I am beginning to realize that I
have used up a significant percentage of my allocation. Certain signals that I
am receiving are beginning to bring this into my awareness daily. Little
things. Things that when mentioned to anyone under forty would largely be
termed unworthy of consideration. Perhaps because these people still cling in a
large extent to the emotional opinion that they are near invulnerable. Youth
can be that way.
When they were young they had forty or fifty years left; to them this
was near eternity. Time passes too slowly at that age; HURRY IT UP! LETS GO! As
if time is in endless supply. It seems, from my current vantage point that they
were deliberately attempting to get their lives over with, as if they had not
yet fully developed a sense of time passage.
I was there. I was also unconcerned with later life. So
unconcerned that I really didn’t prepare adequately for financial life after my
prime. I call that time the ‘breeding years’. It’s true that I won’t starve, but
I could have planned considerably better. But why should I? I had virtual
infinity to do that. Time will always pass slowly. Won’t it?
NO!!! It will accelerate. In this theoretical context, time is not a
universal constant. Each year it moves into the past a little faster. You, in
your busy prime time with only survival to concern you won’t notice this. Won’t
notice it, that is, until those ‘little things’ begin to materialize. They
creep unnoticed into your daily life insidiously like a virus hiding there in
ambush for years until some incident reveals their hiding place.
There IT is! The first of the dark gremlins.... A messenger
appears. Usually happening in your early forties. Usually catching you by
utmost surprise. A simple thing like an ache or a pain where you had never had
a pain. “How can I hurt there? I’ve been doing this exercise for years and this
has never happened”. Perhaps IT will
appear as a comment. A young friend or peer will make an innocent comment; the
friend speaks, “this person was pretty old, he must have been in his
fifties”,... not realizing that YOU ARE THAT AGE NOW. Shocking! He back pedals crudely then, “Oh, of course, I
wasn’t referring to you. You don’t look THAT OLD”..... This is no help at all.
There are many other things that begin to show themselves at that time.
Little shocks, each taking their toll on our moral… if we let them. The sudden
appearance of an AARP brochure in the mail can be devastating if
you let it. The youthful cashier at the restaurant about whom you had just been
entertaining a rather intimate fantasy asks you if you have a SENIOR CITIZEN’S
DISCOUNT CARD! (that one is a killer). You are now beginning to become aware
that most of the people in your daily life are younger than you are; “WHEN DID THAT
HAPPEN!”. Then you think silly things like “my God, I’m older than the
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES”. Totally Bummed!
There is a creeping awareness, a seeming credibility problem. People
around you are more and more difficult to convince and they can’t seem to hold
their attention on your argument as they used to. You find yourself observing
that they are stifling a yawn; they can be distracted from your dialog at the
slightest provocation. You find yourself directing conversation to older people
not secure in the younger person’s capability to maintain attention for more
than a few seconds. You don’t know if this is due to the impatience of youth or
that you are actually that boring.
As a person in the throes of becoming aware of this time of life I am
also realizing there are many positive aspects to this entry to the ‘golden
years’. The overriding impression now is that when I find someone with whom I
CAN converse, (I really mean converse here, not just making small talk about
the neighbors children or griping about the job) , the conversation is
generally much more meaningful, fuller, much more colorful and interesting. Speaking to some younger people these days
sometimes leaves me unfulfilled. They seem to speak in ‘bottom line’
generalities not fulfilling the obligation of getting their complete thought
across. I sometimes ask them to elaborate the subject for clarity only to
trigger impatience thereafter getting bombarded with an even briefer (and
louder) version of their message.
I believe this passage will be a somewhat difficult adjustment. I am
also however, beginning to suspect that the era that I am entering is going to
be immensely more interesting. These people have much more experience with
life. There is interest and caring here. I don’t remember those things being
abundant in early adulthood when we were largely interested in monetary things,
sex, raising families and ‘getting ahead’ (whatever that is). In my youth I
could spend time conversing with another young person only if we had much in
common. Today I find that I am able to listen and become very involved in
conversations concerning subjects of which I have no previous knowledge. I find
myself somewhat intimidated when exposed to the vast and interesting
experiences that emanate from recent ‘senior citizens’ with which I have
conversed.
I wonder if I am about to uncover an obvious ‘secret’? A secret that
thus far has remained invisible due to my being blinded by the ignorance and
impetuousness of youth? This world of advanced and highly experienced folks
probably is discovered infrequently by anyone of fewer than four decades and I
suspect usually not until five.
Age could be rich!
What do you know?.....I no longer fear growing old as much,
Ol' Dave