WAFFLEMAN: On Growing Older

Yo! Here we go again with some observations on growing older. They were sent to me by Barbara M. She says:

Going out is good – coming home is better. When people say you look “great,” they add, “for your age.” When you needed the discount, you paid full price. Now you get discounts on everything: movies, hotels, airplane flights; but you’re too tired to use them. You forget names, but it’s OK, because other people forgot they even knew you. The five pounds you wanted to lose is now 15 and you have a better chance of losing your keys than the 15 pounds.

You realize you’re never going to be really good at anything – especially golf. Your husband (or wife) is counting on you to remember things you don’t remember. The things you used to care to do, you no longer care to do, but you really do care that you don’t care to do them anymore. Your husband sleeps better on a lounge chair with the TV blaring than he does in bed. It’s called his “pre-sleep”.

Remember when your mother said, “Wear clean underwear in case you GET in an accident”? Now you bring clean underwear in case you HAVE an accident. You used to say, “I hope my kids GET married” – now, “I hope they STAY married.” You miss the days when everything worked with just an “ON” and “OFF” switch. When Google, iPod, email, modem were unheard-of things, and a mouse was something that made you climb on a table. You use more four-letter words, like ‘”what?” – “when?” – “where?”

Now that you can afford expensive jewelry, it’s not safe to wear it anywhere. Your husband has a night out with the guys but he’s home by 9:00 p.m. … next week it will be 8:30 p.m. You read 100 pages into a book before you realize you’ve already read it. What used to be freckles are now liver spots. Everybody whispers. Now that your husband has retired … you’d give anything if he’d find a job. You have three sizes of clothes in your closet – two of which you will never wear but you keep them – just in case.

Also, you will probably forget where you read this.

But old is good in some things: old songs, old movies, wonderful memories and, best of all, old friends.

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