The Aging Thing

The idea of getting older isn't bothering me half as much as it used to.

I mean, on the surface, I'm older than I look, and far far younger than I feel. I ache too much to be this age, I know too much, I've done too much. I hit 34 in two weeks. I'm not dreading it. I'm not cringing, or hiding from it, or avoiding it. It makes sense to me now.

I think I even welcome it.

It seems like I have finally reached some sort of balanced agreement with the way things are and must be. We all age. It's not a Wrong thing. It's going to happen. Even once you die, the years still pass, and your body follows along the proper path to return to the earth.

I'll pause sometimes when we're out, suddenly feeling like myself again for a fleeting moment. Small things can bring it on, sensory delights that pick me up and fly me away from what I've become. Then I have to take another step and I can once more feel the cane in my hand, and the spasm and aching that makes it impossible to walk without out.

Four legs, two legs, three legs. All tripod anatomy jokes aside.

BEING older no longer stings as much as FEELING older.

DG and I were talking about Esoteric's trip to Six Flags, and how old it had made him feel. DG shook his head and agreed that we were getting too old.

Too old. What the hell is TOO old, anyway?

Does "too old" for an amusement park mean I'm too old for the action figures on my desk? Does "too old" mean that I have to stop wearing clothes that I like and dress in some prescribed Old Manner? Does too old mean I have to give up the things I like and enjoy because I'm "too old" for them now?

There's no such thing as being too old for anything. If my body allowed, I'll be damned if I let age keep me from zipping down a slide or playing on a swingset if I felt like it. I may have to make allowances for comfort, but that's not age demanding it. I could be sixteen again having to spend money on shoes that support correctly, and not be too old.

So why the heck would that make me too old now?

I remember sixteen, vaguely. I remember sixteen and amusement parks. I remember riding roller coasters that I adore -- and then spending the next hour curled up next to a trash can, shivering and hurling and unable to stand while my sense of balance tried to recover. Ah, the burdens of destroyed inner ears. Vertigo, fun for the whole system.

Didn't stop me then. Didn't make me feel old then, either, to have to stop and sit and rest.

I do know my limits. The nice thing about the limits of my body, however, is that for now, they aren't constant. There are days when I feel like I could walk forever -- such as the day some time in the last month where I wore DG out and HE was the one to say we had to go home. And I can make alterations for days where I cannot. I don't *always* need the cane to walk, but I make sure I have it with me. I won't let that stop me, either.

I'm getting older. Big deal.

I'm just not getting Old.