I am about a little less than three months out until my 56th birthday. There are many thoughts I have as I think about this, including starting to contemplate my own mortality. As you get older, you begin to notice things, and it is a bit surreal when you do. And, lately, my body has been screaming at me that it is aging, and I think I feel it more now than ever.
I am part of Generation X - we were considered the generation that gave a middle finger to both our Boomer parents and to the Millennials that came after us. As such, I think many of us labor under the delusion that we are still who we were when we were 25. To correct that delusion, all I have to do is look in a mirror, and there are days I wonder to myself "who in hell is that old man looking at me?" Then, I realize it's my own reflection. My hair, which was naturally a chestnut brown color, has become more white than brown in recent years. My teeth are at war with practically every bite of food I take now, and in all honesty I need to see a dentist desperately but it is not always that easy to do so. And, for the past 5 years part of my daily regimen is taking an ACE inhibitor called Lisinopril every day, and if I somehow have a delayed refill of my prescription, after two days I feel the effects as I wake up with a headache that feels like someone split my head in two. Lately too, it is becoming harder to climb stairs - I can still do it, but I am climbing them now like my grandmother used to instead of easily ascending them like I used to. Let's face reality - physically, I am getting old! Mentally, my mind has not quite caught up with my body yet, and when that spirals into a border skirmish, I feel that too. It must be remembered though that aging is part of the life process, and none of us is exempt from its effects. No matter how many hairplugs, how many botox injections, and despite gallons of wrinkle cream, age will catch up with us. However, there are also external reminders as well, and this week one sort of sparked this discussion.
Does anyone my age or older remember the sitcom What's Happening? It was popular about 50 years ago when I was still a young kid in the mid-1970s, and one of the best parts of it was the cool theme song composed by Henry Mancini. However, it was also a fun show to watch too. The youngest cast member, actress Danielle Spencer who played Dee, was perhaps one of the best characters in the show, although she had a lot of competition from ReRun, the overweight sidekick of the main protagonist, Dee's brother Raj. Any rate, a couple of days ago Danielle Spencer passed away due to complications of cancer at the age of 60, and that sent a bit of a shock through my system. After her breakout role as Dee on What's Happening, Miss Spencer went to college and got a degree in veterinary medicine, and she was apparently a very successful vet for many years. With so many celebrity deaths this year, one can get the feeling that their generation is dying off. Being a slightly older Gen-Xer than I am, Danielle Spencer probably didn't anticipate this happening, and it is really tragic because she was talented as a child actor but also apparently had achieved a great deal of success in her adult life too. Hearing of her passing - along with the stomach pains I have had the past week for some unknown reason - is what got me contemplating about all this. We should all pray for Danielle's family too as they mourn her loss, and my God comfort them.
Since turning 50 in November 2020, these past few years have saw a lot for me personally. Some of it was good, a lot of it wasn't, but I survived. I lost a lot, and had to more or less do a reset on my life, but I am more or less finding my new place now. Although at this point things have started to stabilize for me, I know that I need to watch my own health better. However, my Gen-X delusions of eternal youth coupled with a natural inclination to procrastination tend to make me delay things I probably should take more seriously. When I woke up this morning for instance, my left arm was practically on fire as if someone stuck a gas line inside me and it also was somewhat numb. I don't think it is too serious, but I probably should pay closer attention. As the comedian Mark Lowry said once, the statistics of human mortality is that one in one dies, and the only exception to that is if the Parousia happens. I don't know if I will ever make it to my 100th birthday, but I am not quite ready to pass into eternity yet either. I feel as if I have still more to do, and at this present season it is teaching about 80 high school juniors during an academic year that starts approximately one week from this coming Monday. Like our youth, summer vacation too is fleeting, and in all honesty I cannot fathom how fast the past couple of months have flown by!
My current focus of contemplation compelled me to watch Grumpy Old Men again last night. There were two of these movies, and for those of us who came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s, these movies are classics. Featuring the late actors Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, this movie and its sequel now strike a nerve, as I feel like those guys. In the first movie, Burgess Meredith plays the father character of Jack Lemmon's character John Gustafson, and the character he portrays is a cantankerous, naughty, and colorful old man who in his profanity-based ramblings to his son does spout some occasional good wisdom. The one thing he says is that after age 90 you start counting minutes instead of days, and that it is important to treasure the experiences of life you have. As one of my favorite authors, the late Robert Newton Peck, once wrote:
"The basis for my success is that I write about what people do, not what they ought to do." (Robert Newton Peck, Weeds in Bloom: Autobiography of an Ordinary Man. New York: Random House, 2005: 207).
In other words, the "shoulda/coulda/wouldas" don't leave a legacy of anything, and envying someone else's hard-earned success does us no favors. However, despite how our physical bodies fail us, we can create legacies that are eternal, and thanks to modern technology, those can be easily preserved. As Nat Hentoff, the renowned jazz critic and pro-life activist, once noted in his memoirs, this piece of wisdom he wrote sticks with me now:
"Musicians used to tell me that playing jazz keeps them young. So does listening." (Nat Hentoff, Speaking Freely - A Memoir. New York: Alfred F. Knopf, 1997: 279).
Being I collect vintage big band and jazz recordings myself - and am starting over with the collection now due to unforeseen circumstances last year - I understand that last part perfectly. There are times when I listen to certain of my favorite recordings, and a feeling comes over me. I feel 25 again, and a glimpse of the person I really am comes through. I think of the famous Frank Sinatra record, "You Make Me Feel So Young" (which in all honesty Ray Conniff had a better recording of in the late 1950s), and although that is about romantic love (I feel that too, but more on that at another time) it also hints at something else. There is a huge difference between aging and feeling old. The former is the natural process of life, and the latter is the attitude with which we respond to it. Many people say "you are only as old as you feel," and to an extent that is true. No one is going to be feeling completely peachy every day obviously, and that is not the point. Rather, it is an attitude, a state of mind, that defines our own course in life. So, what does that mean then? Let me talk about that a bit.
The best way to deal with aging is to age gracefully. We all know one day God is going to say, "time to check out," so that reality is inescapable and also inevitable. However, we don't have to despair that maybe we gained a few pounds, got some grey hairs and a few wrinkles, and maybe our body aches in places we never anticipated or took for granted. Rather, we set our course by living the life we should be living. If opportunity presents itself, seize it. You are never too old to fall in love, get that Ph.D. you always wanted, or even to do those bucket-list projects that have been collecting dust in your mental closet since you were 20. If 1980s and 1990s movies and sitcoms like The Golden Girls or Grumpy Old Men taught us anything, it is that life doesn't end once you reach 50 - for some, it may just be starting! I mean, think of your 20s, 30s, and 40s - what did you do with those? Sure, you may have financial stability, and you probably slaved away at a job for decades you were not happy with to get it, and for many the responsibilities of starting and raising families may have put old dreams and goals on a back burner. However, age should never been seen as a limitation - we Gen-Xers, many of us now in our 50s, should be able to resonate with that. Think of our generation - we were perhaps the most independently-minded and creative generation of the past century, and it was because many of us were forced to grow up fast as young kids. Our Boomer parents in many cases were Yuppies who were formerly anti-Establishment hippies, and we grew up in the relative prosperity of the Reagan years after Carter almost killed the US as a country during his Presidency. And, we were also one of the most misunderstood, overlooked, and ideologically diverse generations too - even I, as a relative eccentric who had more in common personally with the World War II generation rebelled against my late parents. My mother, for instance, was a "Nashville Sound" country music fan who thought a potted meat sandwich was the pinnacle of culinary bliss, and my dad was an aging metalhead who also embraced some antiquated views on race, and both of them were Vietnam vets. I was neither of these, as when I was a young kid I dressed more formally (my dream outfit wasa royal-blue sports jacket, a pair of white slacks, and wingtip shoes), I was an extremely picky eater, and I hated both rock and country music, choosing instead the archaic old records of Guy Lombardo and Tommy Dorsey over even the popular music of my generation. I generally eschewed the fashions of our generation as well, which made middle school hell but then got me some grudging admiration for my individuality in high school. And, as a Gen-X boy then, I learned an increasing arsenal of self-sufficiency skills that would serve me well later too. I mostly had to do all that myself, as at times I never got clear direction from anyone, and for those who attempted to impose it, often it was in a way that was micromanaging and tried to force me into their mold. Many of my generation were also "latchkey kids," and that crossed economic class - middle- and upper-class families then had their own versions of "latchkey kids," as did those of us who were lower-income. We became a proud generation, as asking for help became anathema to many of us because we were always in situations where we had to figure out things for ourselves. That was both positive and negative, as it made us reluctant to ask questions on the job and in college and we suffered for that big-time. I think if I could go back to fix that, one thing I would do is perhaps be more nuanced with some of my personal stubbornness and self-sufficiency. Again though, that is the old "shoulda/coulda/woulda" mindset and we cannot mourn our mistakes - rather, we pick ourselves up and learn from them, which thankfully many of us did. Any rate, I went down a rabbit hole there, so let's get back to the topic at hand.
Aging is an existential physical reality, but being old is a mindset. There are many people who are of advanced age yet they are vibrant as far as their lives go - take the veteran big bandleader Ray Anthony for instance, who is 103 and still going strong. Or my good friend John Booko, an Assyrian-American pastor who is almost 103 himself. Both of these people are living long, productive lives still, and while there is no determination of how much longer they will be with us, they demonstrate that old axiom "you are only as old as you feel." John, my friend, is one of the reasons I take a certain supplement today, spirulina (blue-green algae, particularly a strain found in Klamath Lake in Oregon). I mean, seriously, if he is doing so well taking that for over 30 years, perhaps it's something to pay attention to. And, I do have two grandparents that lived well into their 90s too - had my late grandfather lived to September of this year, he would have reached his 100th birthday. He died at 98 though, so he must have done something right too. While healthy living is a good thing, there are more people dying at 40 of heart attacks that eat vegan diets and power walk 20 miles a day than there are people who are 80 that essentially love to eat fried chicken and good bacon for breakfast every day (and some have an occasional glass of Scotch or a premium cigar on occasion too). The person who is 40, and is obsessed with health fads and climbing the corporate ladder, is doing themselves no favor. Sure, they may look like a million bucks, but underneath that is a mindset that can never rest - if they blow one small thing in their lives, they lose the plot. They may have exterior success, but their minds are not happy. And, many will die young like that - some won't see their 60th birthdays. Another pearl of wisdom from Mark Lowry I recall was this - either cholesterol or stress will get you, so why not have fun going out? Good point I say, because despite how some obsessive people try to pickle themselves for posterity, at some point they will breathe their last. That is something to think about too. That is why I enjoy my Slim Jims, an occasional country-fried steak or some Bojangles chicken, and a nice cold Pepsi. As long as you don't shovel it in, enjoy it! If you enjoy what you do - be it your career, a hobby, or a favorite food - then you will naturally be happier. Of course, the one factor in this is Jesus Christ too - people who follow Christ and have a vibrant faith also have a huge advantage. That is something to think on as well.
So, I talked over the past couple of weeks about aging, my childhood dreams, and a bunch of other personal stuff. I am not sure where this is all going to head, but I am happy to share it with you. Hopefully it will inspire you more as well, and in doing so, the important thing to remember as you take away from this is simple - getting old is a state of mind, so age gracefully. Thanks for allowing me to share again with you.