JustOlder

It's Easier to Laugh, than Fight

I don’t want to wind up like so many older couples who go to restaurants and sit stiffly, like frozen popcicles, staring at anything but each other. It’s true that my husband’s eyes sometimes glaze over in the middle of one of my sentences, but at least he’s looking at me when it happens.

Maybe one reason he and I still talk is that we’re still friends. We’ve accepted the fact that we’re both flawed.  Sure, there are times when we both wonder, "What on earth was I thinking when I married that that . . . that . . . unreasonable, selfish . . ?"  I’m sure, too, that those questions would pop up no matter who we had married.

It May be Jacks, but I'm Still in the Game

Apart from any serious medical problems, I'm convinced that one reason we start "feeling old" is because we stop acting young. It is a theory I have not exactly researched, but I know I feel less Old Fogey-ish when I put some spring in my step.  That can be hard to do when your arches are flat and your balance is iffy. Nevertheless, we all still get urges to do silly things and I like to go with those urges when I can, to lessen my image as Persona Passé.

I was drinking a soda recently and did something I used to do as an adolescent. The drink was on the table in front of me so I bent down to suck on the straw without using my hands. Not a big deal, but then I emptied the glass with that rattle that means mostly air is getting through the straw. It was a token thing and it didn’t require gymnastics, but I liked how it made me feel. I probably looked a little goofy, but at least I felt younger.

The Law of Looking Stupid

There is the Law of Physics, the Law of Diminishing Returns, the Law of Gravity and the Law of the Land. After nearly twenty-seven years of marriage, my husband and I have also discovered the Law of Looking Stupid. It has nothing to do with hostility, at least not at the outset. In fact, it usually begins with pure motives and is set into motion with a certain amount of good will.

Unfortunately, it inevitably results in one pulverized ego. It is a "couple thing" and occurs between two people who have a future together, so that incidents can be recalled for years to come - usually by the one who ended up looking smart.

Since I was feeling a little lethargic one Saturday, my husband suggested I take a multi-vitamin, even though it was late in the afternoon. I was afraid it might keep me awake past my normal bedtime, so I hesitated to take his advice. He poo-pooed my concerns and reassured me there was nothing to worry about. In fact, he said, "What’s in a vitamin? I can take them any time of the day, and they don’t bother me at all." Then he insisted, "Take one. You’ll feel better, believe me." So I did, and sure enough, I felt better. I felt better for a long time. As the Law of Looking Stupid would have it, I got to sleep the following Tuesday.

The Secret only Adults Know

It was the early 1960’s and with my new license, I was driving our white De Soto on Robertson Boulevard, toward town. All the windows were down, the antennas on the tail fins were up, and the radio was blaring rock and roll. As the palm trees blew by I savored the taste of adult independence, at least for the few minutes it took to make the trip. Instinctively I knew that it was a unique and special time of life. I somehow knew, too, that it would be fleeting. What I didn’t know was something that remained a secret until I was much older.

Because of that secret, I think I’ll issue a warning to anyone under the age of 18. You’ve heard it before and it probably won’t mean any more to you now than it did to any of us then, but I’m going to repeat it, anyway. Don't be in a hurry to grow up. 

But that's not the secret . . .

The Incredible Shrinking Brain

I was feeling a little gloomy the other day, so I ran some errands, just to get out of the house. When I turned on the car radio, someone was explaining how studies show that people who get depressed also wind up with smaller brains.

"Uh, oh, " I thought.  "Now I'm not only depressed, I’m scared, too."  Plus, if the little gray cells atrophy with depression, at some point there may not be enough firing synapses left to jump-start a good mood.

If IQ is tied to disposition, only a few laughs separate smart from stupid and, at the time, I couldn’t drum up even an insincere smile. I decided to change the station to something a little less enlightening but, by then, my palms were sweaty and I could feel my heart revving up. Uh-oh. Fast heartbeats. You don’t suppose . . .

Drat!  I read somewhere that depression and heart problems might be linked too, but I couldn’t dwell on that because I would become even more upset and my outlook would surely get worse, shrinking my poor cerebrum even faster.  I was afraid, by the time I pulled back into my driveway, if I could even find it by then, my brain would be the size of a shelled walnut.

Wrestling with the Christmas Tree

We finally got our Christmas tree up but, as I write this, we are recouping with cups of hot cider and a box of Band-Aids. We’ve also started to speak to each other again, although we’re using very short sentences.

It started when we got the Christmas tree out of storage. I know that sounds simple enough, but I could probably sell tickets to the event because it always resembles one of those wrestling matches in the old movies, where the smoky crowd boos and screams, "Pound him! Twist ‘im into a pretzel!"

I’m convinced men and Christmas trees have a unique, if not complex, natural relationship that goes way back to historic woodsmen and their axes. Nature has a long memory you know, but that wouldn’t explain why a fake tree would give my husband so much trouble. Perhaps it contains just enough wood product to recall an ancient animosity, and that’s what makes it want to take my husband to the mat every year.

So Why'd You Get Married, Anyway?

Before I met and settled down with the love of my life, I asked lots of people what it was that made them decide to get married. No one ever gave me a cogent answer, or at least not one that satisfied me. Nothing they said was rational. Instead, it was always the usual, "Because we were in love," or, "We just wanted to be together." It was all emotion, and I couldn’t relate.

I waited a long time to get married, so of course I was asked why I stayed single so long. All I could say was that I had never met anyone I couldn’t live without. I still haven’t, but I met someone I didn’t want to live without. Now that I am married, I can’t give a rational answer to why I was willing to become half of a whole either, but I guess that isn’t as bad as it sounds.

A Virulent Strain of Hickies

Disease are always scary and, like most people, I get concerned when I see evidence of something going around.

There is a new virile strain of something called "Hickies," and it seems to be reaching epidemic proportions. Those poor people who catch it have ugly, red and blue marks on their necks (and who knows where else), and it looks like the devil. My mom says it resembles a condition that was called "Monkey Bites" in her day, but years ago it was fairly rare and people didn’t get such severe cases. I guess the strain has mutated into something stronger.

Grandma's Outfits - Then and Now

When they were my age, my grandmothers would not have dressed the way I do, because it would have been totally "improper", and un-lady-like. In fact, were they to see how I dress at this time of life, they would have a true hissie-fit. These were women who did not own a pair of long pants, much less five-pocket jeans, and a trip to San Francisco required hat and gloves. Neither of them was a fashion plate, but they adhered to the modes of the day – and they didn’t question them.

Black and white photographs of my grandmothers show middle-aged women in print cotton dresses, with bodies that had been re-formed (perhaps deformed) early on by tight-laced corsets. They are wearing sensible shoes on their small feet, and their hair is either in a net or in tight curls close to the head. No running shoes, no tee shirts, and little or no make-up. Yet they somehow seem comfortable with themselves, and that is how I remember them. Looking back, I wonder if they weren’t more at home with their bodies and with their roles as older women than are my counterparts, and I, in our modern frantic world.

Older Bodies are a Disguise

During a recent conversation with a seventeen-year-old girl, I realized that I have developed an uncanny ability to fool people. In fact, she was so taken in that she really thought she was talking to an older woman.

Because of my skills in this particular area, I am certain that she was equating me with her mother, or at least an aunt, and had absolutely no idea that I am really just about her age – around 25 years old. It is true that on bad days I feel a little older – maybe 35 – but, for the most part, I’m still pretty young. Other people just don’t realize it because I’m fooling them by my appearance.