In another month I shall become the big 6-0. Holy mackerel, sixty years old! I can hardly believe that. Truthfully, I had never expected to live this long. Those years went by awfully fast! They rushed by like an out of control freight train on a steep downhill rail. Where did they go, I wonder? I wish I’d been a little more judicious with their expenditure.
That makes me think of what Burgess Meredith said in the movie, Grumpy Old Men. He played Jack Lemmon’s curmudgeonly but over-sexed father. He said “all you have in life are the experiences, son, just the experiences. One day you wake up and you realize that you aren’t 86 anymore.” He said some other stuff too but never mind that now…
Another one of my favorite scenes from that movie is when an aged Walter Matthau is trying to stab Jack Lemmon with a frozen fish while they’re tussling around on the frozen lake, fighting over, what else (!), a woman, and Meredith, as the 92 year old father of Lemmon’s 60-some character, says “don’t make me have to separate you two kids now.” Then, as he walks away he says to someone in the crowd, “Kids! You can’t live with ‘em and you can’t shoot ‘em.”
Old age is a funny thing… When you’re younger, say 20 or 30, 60 seems so very old. But when you’re 40 and then finally, 50, 60 begins looking pretty young. The thought of actually attaining 92 seems absolutely impossible right now but then the thought that I was actually 20 and younger once seems like a distant dream. I hate to bring up that old argument about relevance but by golly, it’s true. It’s really true.
As we trudged stiffly through the hospital corridor tonight a young, energetic woman passed us, walking briskly and soon leaving us behind in the proverbial dust. Gosh, I used to walk like that. When I remarked upon it, Dear Husband, gem that he is, replied that yes, I did. We both did. It was once hard to keep up with me. Without me to hold him back he still makes pretty good time when he walks but it was nice of him to commiserate with me. That’s what I like about him. He’s a gentlemen to the end. The trouble is, I miss being able to walk fast like that but these days when I try to get up a head of steam, I get all tangled up in my cane. Humbug.
I’ve resisted my hairdresser’s attempts over the years to dye my hair. She finally gave up on me. She claimed she just wanted to cover the gray hairs.
“You mean you want to dye my hair,” I said.
“Yes, but just the gray hairs” she said.
“Right, you want to dye my hair.”
“Only the gray hair” she reiterated.
“Okay, let’s say I let you dye my hair,” I said, leading her on, “what color will you make it? Blond?”
“Oh no, I’ll only cover the gray so it will be one color.”
“Brown?!” I was incredulous. “You mean you want to dye my hair and make it brown?!”
“Yes, that’s right. We’ll just cover the gray.”
“Forget it!! I’m not going to let you dye my hair and just make it brown!”
“But you have brown hair,” she said.
“Right now I’m closer to blond than I am to brown. Platinum even! Marilyn Monroe had platinum hair and everyone loved it. I’m sticking with this… I worked hard for this blond (gray) hair and I’m going to keep it just the way it is. At the rate it’s going, it shouldn’t be so long before I’m like Marilyn. I’ll take my chances with it.”
“SIGH!!”
And she hasn’t bothered me since about it. I had a haircut this week and the floor was littered with my ‘blond in progress’ hair and I remarked to her about how well the project was coming. She grumbled under her breath but it did no good. She just doesn’t like admitting that I’m winning.
Maybe in a few weeks instead of a cake and stuff like that I’ll buy myself a feather boa, some RED lipstick and a fancy garter to wear with my orthopedic shoes. There’s nothing like positive thinking…
