Will You Still Love Me? When I'm 64?

 One of my life themes is this: Once I hit 65 I decided I could do whatever the fuck wanted.  SuperK points out that this has pretty much been my modus operandi for my entire life but then again she does a great job at pointing out my defects, foibles, and deficiencies, of which there are legion.  Another one of my themes in life has been complaining about the aging process.  This has always annoyed SuperK.  I blame my mama who was worried about The Nursing Home her whole life.  I never heard my grandparents complain about their health ever.

I think what I fear subconsciously is my own demise.  Indications of my own mortality are unwanted reminder of my own mortality.  On the one hand I'd like to live forever.  On the other hand I would not have made it to the ripe old age of 66 if I had continued drugging and drinking at the pace that I had set in my teens.  The old cosmic joke:  Fate or God or whoever is running the universe appears to have said: "I will give you dominion over all other forms of life.  BUT you will be the only species able to contemplate your death."  And the new cosmic joke is that man's life span has been steadily increasing but the additional years are tacked on at the end.  

Sometimes it seems that most older people are preoccupied with self-centered complaints.  Part of this is the normal pissed reaction that you'd expect from people who are feeling the aches and pains of aging more and more and part is an irritated reaction to feeling more and more invisible - we're ignored in stores by salespeople and don't see a lot of favorable reflections of themselves in popular culture.  There aren't a lot of TV shows or movies that feature wrinkling, sagging, farting, slow-moving dudes and dudettes.  The Elders of the village used to be the trusted sources of wisdom and experience - now we're not always treated as if we have anything useful to say.  Thank God for The Program - at least there the other members sort of have to pay attention to us old folks or at least pretend to.

I am of the opinion that the old have a duty to suffer the slings and arrows of aging with as much grace and determination as we can muster and avoid inflicting our discomforts on those who love us.  With a dignity that eschews self-pity.  I like being in A.A. with people my age.  We laugh about falling apart slowly but we're laughing and we're still moving.  This good humor and interest in others that we try to maintain even as the curtain closes is our attempt to fulfill our obligations to those that survive us.  I'm grateful for the gift of life that I have, undeservedly so, been given and have enjoyed for so long.