Aging, man. Am I right?
Wherein the similes are as flimsy as an off-brand paper plate at a pig roast
As I put the finishing touches on a particularly beautiful PowerPoint slide, nodding with admiration and practicing the humble head tilt that would be required when this presentation is praised in an upcoming meeting (”Well, I just tinkered with a template. . . “ humble nod . . “I like to tinker!” . . .demure shrug.), I stretch and glance around the café to give my eyes the requisite “rest” they deserve. I’m thankful for my eyes, and want to protect them and the vision they provide. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure I have them for as long as the good Lord sees fit.
Except, perhaps, eat a lot of carrots, or take my contacts out at night, or stop staring at screens eighteen total hours a day, or wear eye protection when sawing sheet metal, or quit looking up during the day to see if I can judge the time like the pioneers did.
Outside of those isolated examples, I take very good care of my eyes.
But I digress, like a 19th century dandy who bumps his head senseless on a carriage roof and then spends time trying to convince a passing squirrel to accompany him to the countess’s garden party.
Scanning the space, I can’t help but wonder how many other people in this same café know how to add multiple animations to a PowerPoint deck, change their timing, and rearrange them as needed. Not many, I would guess.
Aw-shucks smile.
Some of us achieve greatness, and . . . well, you know the saying.
My eyes now feeling adequately refreshed from their digital toil (i.e. they might need longer but I haven’t checked Yahoo news in at least ten minutes), I rub my hands together like a Soviet boarding school cook getting ready to massage tarragon into a river trout, and rest my fingers on my keyboard. Time to bring this presentation home!
It’s just then that I notice a woman sitting a few tables away, reading a book and drinking something one might find in a café such as this. Coffee perhaps. Or tea. The options are two, and I relish the mystery.
I should pause here and say that this is not that kind of story. I am a happily married man, wed to a woman who, from what I can tell, is also happily married. Besides, I’m fairly certain that any man wearing cargo shorts and sitting in a booth with multiple monitors, notebooks, and phones, covered in blueberry bagel crumbs and a three-day beard is not, as the kids say, “the epitome of rizz”.
No, what catches my attention is the hat she is wearing. A blue trucker-style cap, with “1995” stitched across its face. Simple and affective in its messaging. For, what else can it be other than a likely tip of the proverbial hat, if you will, to the literal year she graduated high school?
I glance at the woman, and then again at her hat, my mind not making any logical connection. In the four seconds I have known her, I had nary a thought about her age, but now, seeing those numbers, the realization that this person likely graduated high school the same year as I did consumes me. Bores into my soul, like a dog who has just detected a half-eaten Uncrustable in a couch cushion.
Had you moments earlier asked me to guess this woman’s age, I don’t know if I could have given a reasonable number. She is a woman in a café, not a child and not dead. 50? 60?
Older than me, that’s for sure.
To be clear, she is lovely, both externally and, I’m sure, internally as well. She isn’t haggard or unattractive. She isn’t even what I would call “old” or even “not young”.
But, my age? Surely not.
Surely she is considerably older than me.
Surely the hat is worn in jest!
Surely my original interpretation is wrong, and the number refers to something else entirely. Like the fact that she has almost 2000 cats (5 to go!). Or that she has a child who was born that magical year? (If it is the year she was born, then this whole thing has flown way past rueful reflection and right into existential crisis.) Maybe it is some kind of meta clothing experiment, one in which I was not seeing a dollar sign and period, and “$19.95” was the price of the hat, writ large as a statement against the irresponsibility of fast fashion and the faceless cruelty of Big Headwear?
Maybe?
Maybe. But unlikely. And just like that I wake up, like a man coming to in a McDonald’s parking lot after catching a “quick” post-breakfast nap, unsure momentarily where he is and wondering how in the world they can be serving dinner already, but all the same planning to buy some fries to shake the cobwebs.
I am that old.
She and I are that old.
It is moments like these that have the power to stop me in my tracks, like a Thomas the Tank engine toy train that you told your son not to run over the doll’s hair, but he just had to see what would happen!
I simply can’t be the age I am, as it were. I can’t. Sure, my feet hurt after running a quarter mile and there are grey hairs springing forth from my temples (and other places that were once hairless) and my most listened-to genre of music on Spotify is “sleep” and my plans for the day are largely dictated by whether I took my prescription-strength antacid the day before.
And a glance at the refection in one of my monitors in that cursed café tells me I MIGHT perhaps be a bit more advanced of age than I like to think.
But that is all largely misleading. All noise.
Right?
No. I know.
Defeated sigh.
Age is a frame of mind, some say. The aforementioned good Lord focuses on wisdom rather than years when it comes to aging. Still others declare that you are only as old as you feel.
How do I feel?
A bit slow of body and mind. Tired. Sluggish from the post-nap fries.
But also proud. I mean, you’ve really got to check out this presentation!
Contented grin.
I'll keep this short so you have time to make a much-needed appointment with an ophthalmologist. I had so much fun reading this. I think it is one of my favorites and I forwarded it on to all my friends. So be prepared for your subscription software to go a bit haywire with a massive influx of email addresses. Okay stop doing the "humble head tilt" as you read this compliment. You already showed your cards and now we all know it to be fake :):)