Why didn’t someone tell me that it was going to be like this? Getting old, I mean. When I was younger I thought my grandparents had it all figured out. They were the wisest people I knew, the ones who gave the best advice, had all of the most useful, basic experience, and the most insight into the world.
Now that I’m a grandparent myself, I realize how naive those assumptions were, and how great my grandparents were at convincing me of them.
About a year or so ago, I asked my Uncle Joedy, now in his 80s, if it was like that for him. Was he just in an older body with a mind that was still young? “Oh, yes, it sure is!” he said ruefully, and I knew from his tone of voice that he knew exactly what I was talking about.
It’s hard to describe to a young person who would probably think they were talking to someone who is on the verge of senility, but for me it’s like I aged physically but mentally I think I’m still 19.
Which is probably why every day last week you could have found me dangling from a 12-foot ladder, hanging burlap and floral moss in the trees and hoping the wind wouldn’t suddenly send me catapulting into the pond, or looking in the woods for stumps that I could use on tables to elevate dishes holding barbecue, red or white sauce, baked beans and coleslaw.
Who would have ever in the world thought that we women, now the matriarchs of the current generations, would have replaced silver-plated, brass candelabras and our great-grandmothers’ best china and gleaming crystal with galvanized pails, tree limbs and twine-wrapped Mason jars?
Why didn’t someone warn me that I would one day be decorating with burlap, which was what gave off a smell like oil in my Daddy Young’s barn? My word, I could have bought stock in the burlap industry really cheap back then, and be living on some exotic island now with the money I would have made off of burlap stock!
And here’s another tip for those of you who have seen these changes taking place and wondered how it got to this point. Buy stock in Baby’s Breath now while there might still be time! Baby’s Breath (Gypsophila , a genus of flowering plants in the carnation family, Caryophyllaceae, native to Eurasia, Africa, Australia, and the Pacific Islands ) was always just used as a filler for all of the years that I was growing up and when I started hosting weddings. Now, however, it has become the plant most favored by the shabby-chic crowd, and is sometimes used in lieu of and any fresh flowers at all!
I don’t want anyone to think I can’t adjust to these changes, it’s not that, it’s the way my mind say’s “Go for it!” and my body says, “Hey, hold up a minute, there, and let’s think this through…it might not be such a great idea to try pressure washing until 4:30 in the morning while everyone else in the world is sound asleep!” Especially when the pressure washer in question has a flat and you are trying to drag it over roots and vines. And about now is when you’ve discovered that you might not have been in your right mind to have wanted all of these brick sidewalks, edging and flagstone patios.
I’m giving all of you fair warning; this creeps up on you silently and stealthily. One day you are 21, and you can ride a bicycle all over town, all day long, and actually have fun. Then, you get on one, (and you have to be careful even doing that) you ride down the driveway, and by the time you reach the mailbox you are having second thoughts about your seating arrangements.
I saw my oldest friend’s 47-year-old daughter, Kim, dancing up a storm over the weekend, but on Sunday she was complaining about being stiff and sore, and how badly her calf muscles were hurting. She must have danced for three songs, but she remarked later that they were really long songs…something about a ‘stanky leg’ and if ‘you don’t believe me just watch,’ and some other stuff that I never could understand the words to (and probably wouldn’t have wanted to know!). Kim said that it was the ‘wabble’ that got her.
So, you see, even in your 40s it has begun…
This insidious disease called old age makes its presence known only after it’s too late to do anything about it. Sure, you can have plastic surgery but eventually it will catch up with you, somehow, someday, when you least expect it. And cosmetic surgery is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s the joints that get you, and your feet, which used to carry you around in the cutest of shoes, and now howl all night long if you dare to wear anything other than tennis shoes with special inserts.
I just wanted to warn you about this because I sure wish someone had told me. Don’t blink; you’ll see what I mean soon enough…
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