Glider time. The day begins at 5:30, which in San Diego in August is a little after first light. We get up, make coffee, feed the puppies and Joey the Cat, and then we have about half an hour on the glider with our coffee and dawn events . . .
Thick coastal clouds and drizzle this morning. More weird weather. We had three weeks of heat and monsoon moisture, then almost a week of solid overcast, and now this drizzle. We are supposed to get the heat in September, the overcast in January, and the drizzle in June. I’m not complaining. This morning an ocean breeze was pushing some of the drizzle onto the porch, just enough to mist my face. I had to go back in and pull on a corduroy shirt. After the heat stretch, it was a very nice change, snuggled in a shirt jacket with the collar turned up, coffee hot in the cup, thick clouds hanging heavy and low.
I have decided not to “feel old.” There was a story in the paper several days ago, arguing that “feeling old” makes you old. The story validated the decision I had already made. I have never thought of myself as old, even at age 63. I thank rock and roll for that. I can’t listen to Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and feel old.
Still, a time came when I had to make the decision. Oldness came at me the way I believe it comes to most people, at the side door. Things started to happen to me that start happening naturally to people entering their 60s. We enter an age of fair wear and tear. When I was 59, I had prostate cancer surgery. Earlier this year, I had hip replacement surgery. The health scientists say these are the sorts of ailments that start to occur “when you get older.”
I believed it. Outside of appendicitis in junior high school, I went through life without much need for medical attention. I still don’t wear eyeglasses. I go twice a year to get my teeth cleaned, and last time I went, an xray showed a cavity, my first cavity in more than 40 years, which I liked to attribute to my habit of bathing my teeth regularly in strong water. I was active physically, with not many aches or pains.
So I was a babe in the medical woods, entering the age of fair wear and tear, and I was surprised, and ticked off, when doctors told me my prostate needed to come out, and my hip was shot. They mollified me: “It’s just part of the aging process.”
I accepted that, and acceptance was the side door. Hey, old man, come on in. Set a spell. Here, have a few Advil.
I know I started to act old. Well, not old, just older. Having accepted the aging process, I started to buy into it. That’s when I made the decision. As my hip kept healing throughout the spring, I was amazed by how young I was starting to feel. I decided to act on that. I started jitterbugging in the kitchen. I got back outside, in the yard, the garage, the heavy lifting. Karen and I are eating less and exercising more, and from 215 pounds last December, I am knocking on 200. Last week I pulled on my 36 Levis for the first time in five years.
Then here was the story in the paper: feel old, act old, be old. The old Gillette radio ad, stood on its gray head. The aging process is out there, and being in the age of fair wear and tear is perfectly natural. But I’m not going to help it along.
A cool morning, the gym later. Karen is going to lunch with a friend and is bringing me home some pasta for dinner. Life can be good.
I am simply unwilling to feel, act, or be - OLD; at least not yet. I am convinced, and somewhere there must be science to back this up, that even thinking 'old' increases the number of cells that die in any given second. So, having seen that 94 year old former professional baseball player from the Negro League run to first base on a one-day contract, allowing him to be the oldest professional ball player ever, that number, 94, is now planted in my brain as a good goal. I may decide at that time that I am 'old,' but maybe not.
ReplyDeleteI've been pretty lucky; never ate too much of the wrong stuff, never drank to much like my folks did, never smoked anything legal, and still refuse to take up hang gliding, sky diving, or going more than 4 - 5 feet under the water. I know I am not any more special than anyone else, so it is with genuine humility that I offer the following thoughts about not getting old.
My first lesson was actually something I read in grad school, but I didn't really learn it until one summer in the '80s when I was visiting with Sue Robertson Dyrenforth in Cincinnatti. Her grandmother was visiting, and over lunch announced that she was ninety-something, at the time the oldest person I had ever been around. A bit later she started talking about her "next trip" to Russia, planned for the following year. The truth in my studies of longevity stared me in the face: one of the best predictors of living is having a plan for next year. How simple is that; kind of like buckling that old seatbelt.
For this next thought, I have to admit that I've wandered off the reservation a bit in terms of our traditional thinking about health care, and many of the guys who read this may shun me for fear of being tainted by proximity. I have been visiting with a "longevity doctor." Went online, after hearing about some actress appearing on Oprah, clicked around and came up with a list of those folks. (It is a relief that this group chooses not to call themselve geriatric specialists any more.) Turns out Dr. Sebring is only about 35 miles away from my house. Nice man; pretty intense; spent 57 minutes with me the first time. I was pleasantly shocked - mostly be the bill - but it was refreshing that he wanted to know about me, not just about my prostate, sun spots and history of low back pain. Bottom line: I'm 'somewhat low' on testostorone. (Now I know why I didn't make it to the Tour D'France.) Actually, turns out that my t-score is "in the normal range for my age." But, that's not acceptable to Dr. S, and he said it should not be acceptable to me either. For the "normal range" just means it's average, and with average I could be expected to lose energy and muscle strength, and someting he called "interest" - with a grin. But, it's not what you may think; it's not Viagra in a cream. I just feel better all over. Let's leave it at that.
One more side to my plan, and this is even more woo-woo, although for people who have known me for a long time, probably no surprise. I have discovered how to avoid my cynical mind - shut it up actually - and get in touch with my spiritual energy. I was pretty religious as a kid; church was my primary social group for a lot of years. I was influenced by my best friend's dad who was a minister, and I went to seminary and was ordained. In none of that did I ever experience sprituality except as an intellectual concept. Now, I have, and the funny part is that it ain't anything like what I assumed. I still don't go to church much; don't read the Bible anymore. I'm convinced spirituality resides in both, but it just didn't work for me. What finally worked for me was to find out how I can be totally in the present, stop the chatter in my head, and mostly stop the judgements - of myself, of others, of my past, of my future, of all the things I have done to others, and all the hurts I have felt at others' hands (well mostly mouths). Pretty neat!
If the urge hits you... I like: Pete Egoscue's book, Pain Free; The Attractor Factor, by Joe Vitale; Master Chunyi Lin at Spring Forest QiGong (Google); and something called Holosync, a CD published by Bill Harris at www.learningstrategies.com.
It is no longer acceptable to me to be in pain, to be depressed, to feel sorry for myself, to blame anybody (including God). Assuming I don't get hit by a bus or have the terrible luck of incurable CA, I am looking forward to taking at least one at-bat when I'm 94. I hope one of you is pitching, and one of you tries to catch me, and the rest of you are laughing your asses off.