Embracing the Process
On becoming - and being - old
The young lady taking my order at the local burger place was soft-spoken, with a kind but reserved countenance. After I listed the items I wanted to order for my family, she said something that I didn’t catch, due to a combination of her quiet demeanor and the noise of the kitchen behind her. She was obviously asking a question, based on her intonation, but what she wanted know I hadn’t a clue. Instead of seeking clarification, I uttered a single word that I thought would bring the transaction closer to completion.
“Phil,” I said.
Pausing momentarily, a flicker of confusion passing over her face, she again softly muttered something that I couldn’t quite understand, giving me a second chance to ask for clarification, a moment to say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that” like a normal human. Instead, I leaned a bit across the counter and doubled down on my strategy, stating, a bit louder and clearer this time, like someone talking to someone they think is a helpless imbecile, “PHIL.”
Her bemused and increasingly confused expression immediately clued me in that we were not actually having a conversion in the truest sense of the term, but were merely saying words at each other, words that only made sense to the respective speaker.
Finally grasping the fact that I needed to bring clarity to this situation and fast, I said, “You didn’t ask for my name, did you?” Had I thought about it for even a second, I would have known she hadn't asked for a name because they didn’t use names for orders here, just numbers. Numbers were flying through the air around us, not names. “Fives” were present, while “Phils” were nowhere to be heard. She confirmed this when, very succinctly this time but still with (a notably more forced) smile, she said, “No, I was asking if your order was for here or to go.”
Ah.
In light of what she was actually asking, my response must have made me seem to her like a non-English speaking tourist at best, an actual imbecile at worst, one who only knew one English word - my own name - and who had determined to use that word in any and every social interaction.
At very least, this interchange, as verified by the way my family rolled with derisive laughter at the retelling, confirmed a deep and abiding suspicion that has been festering in my very soul, namely that I am, as the kids would say, getting old.
It’s fairly well known that Playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote something along the lines of “Youth is wasted on the young.” What’s less well known is that an earlier version of the quote actually continued, “But all of the pills are wasted on the old.”
(I actually can’t prove that there was a long lost second part to the quote, but I like to believe if there was, Bernie would have said something pithy like this.)
What’s not wasted on me is the simple fact that I am getting old. (And yes, it’s a cliché, but only because it is a profound universal truth. That’s how clichés become clichés, and frankly they get a bad rap.)
To some, I AM old. Certainly to the young lady at the burger counter, I was old AND strange.
There’s no way around it. There’s no way to spin it. There’s no magic Bernard-Shaw-ian pill to make in not true. (But I’m sure there ARE pills that will make me not care if it’s true, were I interested in such a thing).
To be sure there is some personal consolation in the fact that getting older is a natural state of anyone reading this, as well as anyone who has chosen not to read this for either lack of interest, lack of awareness, or a downright mean disposition. I hate the thought that I am breaking news to you, dearest reader, but we are, in fact, in this together. (For those of you on the aforementioned pills, jot it down right quick, read it back to yourself later, and come to grips with it then.)
In any case, it’s a strange thing when you start to really see the aging process for yourself, in yourself.
In your relative youth, you notice it to a degree, but you don’t really care. Actually that’s not exactly right - in the unlikely event that you stop being consumed with all of your youthful activities long enough to consider such an obscure subject as aging, you do care. But in those rare moments of introspection, you see it as a positive thing, because aging brings you closer to all of the adult stuff you long to do. Like driving. Or legally getting into a music festival. Or opening your own Roth IRA so you can retire at a reasonable age while avoiding an unnecessary tax burden.
Man, if you only knew.
Time passes, you trade the music festival for family fall festivals sponsored by a local orthodontist, and The Process masks its work for long stretches, only turning up now and again to say hello after months or years of doing its thing behind the scenes.
One morning after your third cup of coffee and a period of productivity at work, your kids tucked safely into school, you feel young and rejuvenated and forget how long it has been since you were actually young and rejuvenated. Then later that evening you take a look in the mirror in that bathroom with harsh lighting that accentuates the circles and pops the puffy cheeks, at which point you exclaim out loud, “THAT’S what I look like now?!!”
One evening you go to bed feeling physically fit and healthy and the next morning you wake up with a torn hamstring, a messed up rotator cuff, a massive headache, and twelve new bruises on your legs and arms. You’re sure you were asleep the entire night, and can fairly well prove that no one broke in and attacked you, but yet here you are with injuries similar to those of an NFL defensive lineman; you’re a new, sad breed of athlete.
You start reflecting on your parents when they were your age, sympathizing with them like never before. You may even start saying things they did back then, statements you found bewildering at the time. Things like:
“Close the door, we’re not trying to heat the whole neighborhood!”
Or
“When I was a kid, it was a treat to go to Dairy Queen.”
Or
“I don’t know what a “Tick Tock” is but put it down and help me plant this grass seed!”
Make no mistake, it’s just your centuries-old pal The Process, who, like a virus, has been lying dormant within you all along and is now doing a pop-in to, with a faux-kindness, say Aloha and to remind you that the two of you are linked together for all of this side of eternity.
He/She/It surfaces from time to time as subtly as a refurbished Soviet era submarine to point out the little mannerisms and beliefs you hold that either are representative of how the years since youth have changed your perception (”It’s criminal how many tattoos that guy has on his eyelids!”), or hasn’t changed YOUR view at all but has rather changed how the younger generations see things (”Can you believe there was time when NO ONE had tattoos on their eyelids?!”).
It’s what makes those commercials about people turning into their parents so funny to some, and insulting to others.
From time to time, you see the signs of The Process clearly, and in a stark moment of reality, the veil is momentarily torn away and you feel your actual age again. “Hey Phil. Just FYI, I’m still here,” he/she/it calmly says, with a jocularity that is infuriating. “Didn’t want you to worry. I’m doing great over here! Fit as a flippin’ fiddle.”
And increasingly, the appearances are at all hours, and when you least expect them. One moment you are drifting off to sleep next to your life partner, the person closest to you in the world, and the next you slowly awaken with actual tears in your eyes because you dreamt that you were both 20 years younger, living in your first apartment, planning the next steps of life together, at which point you begin to groggily realize that the years in between then and now add up to two decades, and that that earlier, sweeter-seeming time is gone.
And your knees hurt for some reason you can’t begin to explain.
Oh how I wish I had made that entire scenario up.
I guess the takeaway, if there is one, is that we should go ahead and lovingly embrace The Process, to ask him/her/it to stop trying to hide their existence and to just be openly present with us more. Let him/her/it know that WE know it is useless to resist, and that we might as well enjoy whatever time we have left with our life-long companion. To let him/her/it know that the next time we’re driving home with our family after a dinner out, we’ll no longer feel odd about wondering out loud how a meal could cost so much.
That we’ll no longer feel it’s strange to turn off the lights in a gas station restroom when we leave in order to “save them some money”.
That we’re certain that if a band of revolutionaries came to town seeking out the aid of all brave, able-bodied people, we’d be forcibly left behind. And we’re ok with it.
That we will no longer be ashamed at the joy of slipping on a REALLY comfortable pair of socks!
That we’ll henceforth celebrate the fact that although we used to spend the majority of our time at Costco perusing the TVs and electronics, comparing specs and mentally measuring our wall space, we now find ourselves wandering through the vitamin aisles, saying things like, “I wonder if this Turmeric will help my joints.” and “They are going to LOSE money on this Krill Oil!”
We are what we are, and the sooner we accept it, the better we’ll feel, emotionally if not physically. Let’s lean into it (as far as we can without hurting our backs).
A few weeks after my encounter with the food service girl, I was entering an amusement park with my son and his friend. We had purchased our tickets online, including a couple of vouchers that could be turned in for meal passes. For some reason that I cannot explain, not knowing exactly how this process of turning a digital code into a meal pass bracelet worked was stressful for me. I guess this fear came from the fact that we had paid quite a bit for the passes, I was with hungry pre-teen boys, and because my wife was not there to do her magical logistics thing that makes all of these processes better because she’s not a crazy person.
As the young lady scanned our park entry passes at the turnstile (these pitiable teenage workers just trying to finance their youthful lifestyles without interactions with old guys like me), giving us the complete freedom to enter the park, I stammered something about the meal passes to the poor girl. As far as I can recall, it was something like the following, although I am probably giving myself too much credit with this level of coherence:
“Do we get our meal passes here? I have the app and I don’t know where to get the passes. Is that here? Is that you? They are paid for and they are passes, and they are on my phone, and I want to make sure I get the meal passes. That’s not here is it? If not can you tell me where? These passes, see? I have a code if that helps. See the code? I may have an email if that helps. Do I scan that here? And do we come here for the food?!”
The look on her face would not have been different if I had replaced the term “Meal Passes” with “Astronaut Pants”. As she glanced at the growing queue behind me (or maybe she was giving a secret signal to the security guards monitoring the entrance?), she said, with a marked note of pity, “No, I don’t do that here,” before reaching behind me to scan a saner guest’s tickets.
I’ve thought about that interaction quite a bit lately, and heretofore with a sense of failure and incredulity. But, no more. From this day forward, I welcome The Process and will invite him/her/it to be my plus-one on all of the rides I can stomach and to covertly share my meal pass. We will (carefully) frolic and we will laugh and we will talk every day.
Even if the only word I bring to the conversation is my own name.
Thanks for reading! Hoping today is a day that you embrace whatever process you’ve been avoiding.
If you found this even remotely enjoyable to read, I’d appreciate you sharing this post and/or newsletter with your friends, family, clergy, festival-sponsoring orthodontist, etc. See the myriad buttons below, or simply forward with my warm regards.
And you’ve not seen anything yet! You are still a youngster to The Process. Just wait … it gets better and better :)
I have a painted saying above my desk “learn to embrace the current season of your life”. Doing that makes “THE PROCESS” easier.