I Don't Care What They Say, Gettin' Old Ain't for Sissies!

By Jim Dooley

I awoke this morning with my neck as stiff and as painful as an Old Testament judgment. Inflexible as ironwood, my unyielding neck refused even to turn to read the alarm clock.

At breakfast, I felt something hit my chest.  Unable to look down, I had to ask Nancy if I’d spilled food (as usual).  And so goes life in the Wonderful World of Geezers.

I’m telling you, getting old sometimes is terrible.  Big time!  But then, if you’re over 60, you already know that.  Like they say, age is a very high price to pay for maturity.  Especially when you consider how overrated maturity is.

Now as I lie here in bed staring at the Weather Channel (another sign of 'maturity'), my heating pad set to the max, I wonder where I can get a pair of those sandals that go great with dress socks.
 

Have you noticed — it’s always something?

New aches and pains, new creaks and cracks (I'm coming to see you Dr. Jay Werthmuller!); gets so that what doesn’t hurt, doesn’t work.  And just yesterday, I felt so good!

Maybe my friend Frank is right.  For Christmas, he gave me Shelby Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative.  This book weighs seven pounds!  So last night I started reading the book.  Slouched up in our big old chair, I stopped about 2 a.m.  Must have held my head wrong, though.  Whatever, it’s the book’s fault that this morning my neck won’t allow me to even drive to see Dr. Jay.

With all its aches and pains, life in my seventh decade is still exceedingly blessed. 

Seventh decade! That’s what it is when you’re 61.  Both age and decade sound ancient.  Can I be talking about me?

I mean, don’t you usually feel about age 40 or so?  Fifty, tops.  That is, until you make the mistake of glancing into mirror and, for an instant, wondering who that old man is looking back at you.  I have days feeling as young as 30, at least until the bliss is shattered by some fool trying to sell me an annuity, nursing-home insurance or a reverse mortgage.

And so I stoop to report my stiff neck and sloppy breakfast habits.

But in the optimistic spirit of the senior who told me, “My memory’s about gone, but I can still retain water,” I know that by tomorrow my neck will be better.  I’ll be able to look at bulky Shelby Foote narratives, without hurting my neck.