Getting Old One Word At a Time

No, no.  We said, old man ...
not Oldman

It as last Tuesday when we realized, suddenly and definitively, that we were old.  We'd always imagined the aging process to be somewhat subtle and linear.  That it might happen in fits and starts but ultimately, you don't grow old over night.  At least that's what we thought.

There are two ways you get old - mentally and physically.  The physical part is the one that's supposed to go first.  At some point your body begins to act like an ungrateful, rebellious teenager.  At first, subtly and subversively ignoring your commands before progressing into outright defiance and ultimately a complete loss of control.  Maybe you fight it but like a roller coaster, once the decent starts, no matter how hard you try or how high you get, you can never quite reach that initial peak.  Through a series of basketball games and other random activities that no normal, well-adjusted person at our age should involving weighted vests, sprints, car pushing and P90X.  Eventually the creaky ankles and increasingly balky knees and back will finally give out and we'll start talking in terms of what we "used" to be able to do instead of what we hope to be able to do one day.  But for now, we're fighting the good fight.  It's an ugly and unfair process but you can at least take solace in its predictability.

The mental part, that's a different story.  Apparently, you're only as old as you feel and that, at least, implies that even as you start to reach a Josh Hamilton level of brittleness, you can at least make up some ground by maintaining a youthful mindset.  We haven't necessarily  felt "young" in a while, having long since given up on youthful pursuits like "going out" and "drinking" and "staying up past 10" while embracing things like "Criminal Minds" and nap time.  But all those things were supposed to fall in the category of "relaxation" and "contentment."  They weren't supposed to be some early indication that we were giving in to our elderly urges.  But that illusion was shattered, like your dreams after the first student loan bill, with the utterance of one simple word:

"Seriously."

It was a typically crappy late-March Tuesday at the train station, as we continued to wait for that elusive lamb, made just that much shittier due to the ticket machine's apparent plastic allergy and the fact that we had neither a ticket home nor any cash (who still carries cash anyway?  Drug dealers?  People without bank accounts?  Anyone else we can make baseless generalizations about?)  As we scrambled around the station looking for another machine, we were stunned to encounter a stream of rocks flying across our path.  None of which, of course, hit us.  As we glanced toward the curb to find the source of the assault (read: minor annoyance) we eyed the two ruffians (read: random skater-looking kids).  As the culprits attempted to apologize, we made it quite apparent we would have none of it by letting out the offending word. 

As with most of the important things we've ever said, it wasn't the word itself but the inflection that made it so bad.  When said matter-of-factly or in agreement the it's completely innocuous.  And even if its said in a "white guy trying to sound cool" way, though awful, it's not damaging to the self-image.  But, when with such contemptuous, incredulous and reprimanding way that it could have easily been replaced with "Get Off My Lawn", only to be tagged with the equally embarrassing "Throwing rocks?  In a parking lot?", you're left with the inescapable conclusion that, no matter how many dick jokes we make or basketball games we play we are, in fact, a very old, curmudgeonly man.  At least if they'd hit us with rocks or attacked us with skateboards, we might have been able to garner some sympathy.  Now we're just in need of elder care.