Bleargh.


I don’t feel sick
I don’t feel tired
I don’t feel hot
I don’t feel cold
I don’t feel sad
I don’t feel happy
I don’t feel nothin’
I just feel old

I don’t usually feel all of my years. I look at pictures of people my age, and think they look considerably older than I do. I have friends who started going gray in their twenties, and I am just barely beginning, in my fifties. I got carded buying wine just last year.

But today, I feel every one of my years, and a good many of someone else’s as well–so if you feel extra young today, I would be happy to return your years to you.

If this is what normal aging is gonna be like, I’m having none of it. Starting tomorrow, I’m getting younger.

Comments

  1. Trebuchet says

    Good luck with that. You’re almost certainly younger than me, by the way. Signing up for Medicare and Social Security took a real toll on my psyche.

    One thing I do to feel younger is having a somewhat insane hobby — building contraptions to hurl pumpkins. Hopefully the weather will improve before long so I can get back to building a new machine.

  2. Pierce R. Butler says

    The traditional remedy to the plight in this morning’s verse is to feel superior, smugger, and – if self-deluding skills are up to it – wiser.

    You smart-ass kid!

  3. Trebuchet says

    Growing old sucks, until you consider the alternative.

    As I saw with elderly parents before they finally passed, there’s a point at which the alternative is better.

  4. catlover says

    Cuttlefish —
    Gosh — I hope you feel happier soon! Just think of your bad mood as stupid misbehaving brain chemicals. Yeah, getting old sucks — and I am a LOT older than you are, but as long as you are physically and mentally healthy, you have a lot of happiness to look forward to. The unpleasant mood you are in WILL pass — that is the nature of moods.

    ( I wish I could go back to being the age I think you are — man, THAT would be GREAT!)

    And, yes, I agree — once one is that infirm, the alternative sure sounds much better.

  5. machintelligence says

    You feel 5 years older for every pill that you have to take.
    An old person is someone who is at least 10 years older than you.

  6. Cuttlefish says

    I’m not actually in an unpleasant mood–I just feel old. I suspect a combination of the time change and the wrong choice of sweater is to blame–I looked in the mirror and saw someone old–well, compared to the person I usually see in there.

    Machineintelligence–one of the pills I have to take is one that makes me much much younger than I was 25 years ago! I used to be an infirm old geezer with stiff, shuffling gait, and now I am a spry, young geezer who just got back from a run. Better living through pharmaceutical chemistry!

  7. komponist says

    At 72, I’m very thankful for another kind of pill that makes me feel younger—if you get my drift!

  8. Ray, rude-ass yankee says

    I like your idea, I’m going to try it too!

    Although if that doesn’t work out, I’m going to fall back to my current plan, as stated in marcus@2‘s credo

    This mid 50’s stuff has got to be someones idea of a bad joke.

    Yay, modern science and pharmaceutical chemistry!

  9. says

    “You’re not getting older; you’re getting better.” — Anon.

    “If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With 60 seconds’ worth of distance run,
    The earth is yours and everything that’s in it,
    And, which is more, you’ll be a man, my son.” — Kipling

  10. says

    If you really want to feel old, Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin has been publishing its “Mindset List” for 15 years. Originally meant as a guide to college staff to help them relate to incoming freshmen, it helps to underscore just how old we curmudgeons really are. Choice items rom the Class of 2017 list:

    * Eminem and LL Cool J could show up at parents’ weekend.
    * As they started to crawl, so did the news across the bottom of the television screen.
    * The Pentagon and Congress have always been shocked, absolutely shocked, by reports of sexual harassment and assault in the military.
    * There has never been a national maximum speed on U.S. highways.
    * Their favorite feature films have always been largely, if not totally, computer generated.
    * A Wiki has always been a cooperative web application rather than a shuttle bus in Hawaii.
    * Their parents’ car CD player is soooooo ancient and embarrassing.

  11. notyet says

    At 57 I know exactly what you mean. Some days I bounce out of bed, look at the trim and toned body in the mirror and wonder what I am going to do for the next thirty years. Some days, like the one you are going through today, I look at the old geezer in the mirror and wonder what happened to my life. I have one suggestion. Marry a Mormon woman with six kids, go to Utah and move in with her mother. No matter how long you live it will seem like centuries. Cheer up, in my case at least, those feelings go away with the first pleasant thing that happens and I see reality for what it is. Aging is inevitable and if you look and feel even a bit younger than you expected to at this age, things could be worse. Two Excedrin and two Sodium Naproxin are still enough to make the worst backache disappear and I can still get into a pickup basketball game at the park and surprise a few youngsters. Way better than we thought we would be at this age when we were the youngsters.

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