Growing Older
Warning fellow writers…intentional run-on ahead…
I’m in the season of my life where every story seems to be peppered with the words, “back in the day,” and a good night’s sleep means nodding off at 8:30 to that Netflix show your girlfriends have told you is too good to miss and then awakening on the couch at 3 a.m. and stumbling to the kitchen to take two cubes of butter out of the refrigerator to soften to room temp because you must need to make a batch of something for someone that day.
Lord knows, in the 1960s, it seemed I was forever waiting for butter to soften for that stained, handwritten recipe scrawled on a lined note card and kept in the avocado green recipe box decorated with an owl stirring a pot and wearing glasses.
I remember a time “back in the day,” when microwaves were right out of the Jetsons and when my dad’s parting words to me when I walked out the door were, “Do you have a roll of dimes in case you need to call?”
Now my grandchildren ask, “What’s a roll of dimes, Nana? And what does it mean to ‘nickel and dime” someone?’ And laugh when they watch me at my computer where the seven-year-old opines, “Nana, why don’t you have a wireless mouse? Everyone has a wireless mouse, Nana.”
When did everyone mean everyone but me? I’m cool. Why wouldn’t everyone want me with them?
Where did those years go? Where are they hiding? Is my short-term memory waning and my long-term memory waxing? Why else could I explain why I can’t stop wondering about what happened to Johnny Remingon, the boy from first grade who I tangled with in an actual fist fight on the corner of Hosford and 76th Street. (Early seeds of anything you can do I can do better when it comes to boys vs girls.)
Unfortunately, I lost that fight. And I’m wondering, in this age of #MeToo, if Johnny Remington feels any twinge of guilt for pounding my head on the pavement.
When did I start feeling disposable? Like that phrase collateral damage that sadly, we grew too accustomed to hearing spoken on nightly newscasts in yet another seemingly endless war in another country whose name we couldn’t pronounce?
When did I start watching those Instagram stories about how NOT to look my age? Conversely, when did “start acting your age” become a dreaded thing instead of a badge of adventure and childlikeness? What am I supposed to do? Act my age or not act my age?
So I wrote some rules for myself. And for your Nana with the not-wireless-mouse.
How not to act your age
Be less grumpy. Smile more.
Be less critical. Listen better.
Eat less fiber (if only for a day). Try an ice cream cone on the front porch while watching the world go by.
I once had an “old” neighbor, Jack, who knocked on my door and said, “Good. You’re home. I’ll be right back.” And he returned with two drippy ice cream cones where we sat on the steps of the porch and did just that…watched the world go by. It was the sweetest gesture since sliced bread (I’ll bet not everyone knows that catchphrase).
So, this website will attempt to do just that. Watch the world go by. And oh yeah, be less grumpy and learn to listen better. You can, after all, teach a young dog old tricks.