The 40

When you get older, simple things cause bigger issues later. I fall asleep on my couch and it kills my shoulder and back the next morning. I use to be able to just plop down in a dirt field somewhere and wake up refreshed and ready to run. But now...just extreme head pain the rest of the day. It’s these little tiny things that build up and just become nagging. The reason why most older people are nitpicky about things is for this reason. They have to really watch every thing they do in life. Because the older you get, the more stories you also hear. For instance, the guy who died when he took a shower at the gym and got a staph infection and died. Yeah, never happened. We older folk start making shit up all the time. My supervisor is over 50 years old and tells me STUPID shit all the time. “Look at all that sodium you’re shoving down your stomach” as I point to his distended gut and shrug. Yeah, I really want advice from THAT guy.

Also, we start to build comfort zones for ourselves. White noise to drown out the stress and anger from the day. Listening to angry talk radio so that it kills the anger you have for idiot co-workers who you think conspire against you. Write blogs on a site no one reads. That type of shit. All to sidestep the inevitable. That we really don’t want to die of the dumbest thing.

You ever read those stories where a guy had his window open as he was on an African safari and a lion jumped into his car and killed him? What do we say? “Well, that’s Darwin thinning out the herd.” Hardly the eulogy you want for your own demise. If all things function in your life well, you don’t become a headline story anywhere. You just go quietly (most likely shitting yourself, which is the sum of everything you’ve worked towards anyway). I just don’t want to go with someone making light of it. OR if it is a must and I should do something stupid to expire, hopefully someone videotaped it and can, at the very least, put my misadventure on with “Yakety Sax” playing in the background. Running for my life against an escape cheetah, maybe?

There are other things that happen as you get older. You start to wonder what all the crap is around you. Why what you found important younger you think is a stupid waste of time. I’ve said it before, when I was a kid, I was convinced I’d watch cartoons until I died. Now that I am older, every time I see a cartoon I wonder why kids need all that noise and color. Eye sugar shock, if you ask me now. You do start to let a lot of things go, as it just means you have more time to think about random stuff as well. Your brain capacity to organize becomes limited. Your creativity wanes a little. And you write fragmented sentences so you don’t forget your point.

What was my point? Oh yeah, these are things that will start to get on your nerves. Unless you just embrace the downward slide. Even though, in the latest Nerdist podcast, actor Rob Lowe is convinced his life started at 47 years of age. Well, Bob-ert, if you’re banging underage girls as a 20 year old heartthrob, I’d say 47 is about a shade over life starting as well.