Getting older is liberating
I can remember when my friends were getting their driver’s license; now they’re getting their pensions and plucking nose hairs after they’re done with the ears. OMG.
What happened to the last 48 years or so?
In another 48 years I won’t even be here, which is why I recently tried that New-Age BS thing – “Live in the moment.”
It didn’t work. Live in the moment? Depends how you define it.
When I’m stuck behind some idiot at the stop light who won’t move because he is texting his wife, then his girlfriend, I honk, flip him off, and I’m living in the moment. At least that’s how I define it. Now I’m happy.
By the way, as I taught our son, if you’re younger than me, never get into any road rage incident. Never stare anyone down (he may have just been paroled after serving 35 years for a double homicide, and he still has anger-management issues); just let the crazies drive by you without reacting or flipping them off, and/or screaming at them when they won’t budge after the traffic light turns green.
Since I’m older than our son, I can ignore my own advice. Actually, I always have. Now, I’m older and getting meaner and uglier by the month, don’t give a $#&# about most things any more, plus I’m usually armed. So I don’t care who I flip off, unless it’s a cop.
I first used to look at the driver’s face before letting them know what I thought of their driving abilities, or the lack thereof; but now I don’t care. Say 10 years ago, maybe five, if the guy in the other vehicle looked like a dangerous dude — actor Danny Trejo on meth, for example — I would usually follow my own advice and ignore anything that might lead to road rage. With age, however, comes that “I no longer give a $#@% attitude.”
It’s downright liberating. The only problem with aging, as I see it, is having to watch friends pass away. Actually, the first friend I saw die was when I was about 22. We were both attending aviation college. He went on a night run with a charter pilot in a Beech 18, just to gain some twin-engine, nightflight experience. The pilot blew the instrument approach, and the plane crashed. I drove by the airport the following day and saw my friend’s orange VW bug sitting there, parked outside the hangar, and I thought, how sad.
So it’s not like I haven’t lost friends over the years, not to mention the painful sight of my parents and inlaws passing away; it’s just that the deaths are coming at me now at a faster pace.
Willie Nelson, 93 this year, once said something along those lines – that one of the saddest parts of getting older is having to watch so many friends die. I think he said it around the time he lost his good friend, the blind piano maestro, Ray Charles.
By the way, have you ever really looked at these self-help gurus who write these types of books — Live in the moment. Do they look happy to you? Of course they look happy, because they’re rich, thanks to the people who buy their books. Not that rich will make you happy, but it will sure help. To me, the self-help people look like the type of person who likes to eat Tofu and drink protein shakes after a Yoga workout. For fun. Give me some cholesterol- lade mollejas (sweet bread) any day.