I’m old. Newly old, sorta. It wasn’t very long ago that I noticed it, suddenly, one day I woke up and jeez, I was old. I always knew it would happen, but I didn’t expect it to happen just one day when I got up to go to work and saw white hairs and lines on my face. That guy I was/is was/is old. Today. Right now.
I remember, what was clearly many, many years ago (because I’m old) thinking about becoming an old guy. In my head, there I was, leaning up against a fireplace mantle, holding a martini and wearing a suit, regaling some people with stories of my youth. A pretty simple tableau, seemingly indicating my facile understanding that getting old was also pretty simple. But, hark! That’s not exactly how it is. Strangely, that mature guy in my head looks NOTHING like me, looks nothing like I ever looked like. First, he’s in black and white like an actor from the late movie (which, of course, no longer exists as a “thing”), with slicked-back Vaseline white hair on his head. And he’s wearing a suit, which, believe me, I will NEVER do again. And the martini, and the group I’m regaling? I don’t know how to make a martini, and I have absolutely no friends anymore.
Aye, there’s the rub – as the (old) pirates say. I thought I had the process of getting and being old all figured out. I’d just go stand by the fireplace and get drunk, in sartorial splendor. But waking up that one day and having that old-guy/it’s-me screaming at me silently from the mirror, I realized that I had absolutely no fucking idea how to live the rest of the day. Or week, or year, or whole new era.
What do I do? What should I do? Should I get plastic surgery? Join the Elks Lodge? Call AARP? Go sit around a barbershop, and play checkers on top of a barrel? Go to the hospital? Yikes! Nothing I could think of sounded likely, or enjoyable, or at all like something I would want to do. Faced with this seeming catch-22, I simply did the best thing I could possibly do, and decided to do nothing at all and ignore it. Soldier on.
Which I did, until fairly soon after, I was fired – for being too old. Of course that’s not what they called it, no one fires people for being too old these days unless they’re actually seeking a lawsuit, but that’s what it was. I was too old, and I cost them too much money. Throwing old geezers through a glass ceiling. So I shuffled around the house a while, and finally got another job. It hadn’t yet occurred to me that I was allowed to retire, but by god I could sure get a job doing something completely different. And it was. And I thought I enjoyed it, at least for a couple of years. Then, in a fit of confusion (which is what I now know is one of the first signs of becoming an old man), I suddenly quit and immediately moved my family and my considerable amount of worldly possessions hundreds of miles away, after living in the same town for forty years, the same town I was born in, to be closer to my kids – which is also, of course, another sign. Once here, I got a completely ridiculous job, having reailzed that my desire for “career trajectory” was a thing of the past. I was selling bolts. And I thought I enjoyed it, at least for a couple of months.
And then one day I woke up. Actually, it was yesterday – and I realized that, shit, I was still old, and on top of that I was also frustrated. Why am I selling bolts? To Bubba?
Well, I haven’t quite yet decided to quit selling bolts, but I’m close. Watch me. What I have decided is to branch out, move into the next phase as it were, make some decisions about how to find some – I don’t know – peace? Happiness? Contentment? It appears to me that it’s time to find at least one or two of those things and quit thinking constantly about what everyone else wants me to do, and discover what I actually want to do. I’m guessing some of you are in the same boat, about to quit your job and “retire,” but don’t really know what exactly that means. I don’t know, and I can’t tell you, but maybe we can find out together. My intention is that you’ll find all kinds of things here, over time. Keep watching. This’ll be a blast.