“I could do that again, and again, and again.” “Really?” “I could do that all day.” “Really? “What if you did it wrong?” “How can I get that wrong?” “Maybe You had a bad teacher?”
To be young again. To turn back the hands of time. To go back to the beginning. Each sentence makes for a great song. Unfortunately, it's all just wishful thinking. Truthfully, I have no interest in revisiting the past. Why bother, we can’t rewrite the past, no more than we can go back and not repeat the same errors. It’s the biggest myth ever told, to suggest that if you went back in time, that you would know then what you know now. No one can have it both ways; if we could go back in time, we may know what's going to happen. But we are still powerless to prevent from happening. Which invertible means, you would, we would, commit the same mistakes, all we would know is when they were going to occur. To be young, is to literally have a license to commit mistakes. Sometimes, over and over again. That is until you get older. Now those same youthful mistakes take on greater consequences. Which is so unfair. Why is driving above the speed limit, in a sports car normalized in our youth, than it is in our 60’s? Did the rules change and no one told me? "Youth is wasted on the young”, is a quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw. That quote has puzzled me throughout my formative years. I could never figure it out. I wasn’t wasting anything; I was really having a good time being young. I never wanted to get old, and I never wanted the party to end; I had energy; I had stamina; I had boundless imagination; I was daring; I measured risk by the reward; It was going to be like this forever. So, I thought and hoped.
As I look at my life now, I realize that I still have energy. I, we still have good times. But I'm not that young man I was 20, 30, 40 years ago. Does it scare me? Honestly, yes. I believe it scares all of us. It's the main reason I believe we don't shout or proudly exclaim our age. Hey, World I'm 60...! There is this resignation because I, we feel as though something has been lost... But what? A closer look at my days reveals that I, we, still have enormous amounts of energy. That in a day we may cycle through multiple arrays of situations, that either require something physical or an extremely difficult mentally challenge; all completed without the knowledge or sense that we are actually doing anything. How is it that we are letting this untapped energy go to waste? We must do something positive with this excess fuel. You can't have plenty of fuel left in the tank, and barely drive the car? What sense does that make? For example, today, and this by know means is a boast, but true is true. It's August and the ambient temperature is well above 90o degrees here in the south. But I dressed like I was about go running in the Alps. I started with my wool sweatpants nothing cool, a tee shirt with a matching wool hoodie. Today is training day and once dressed I proceeded do some warm-ups in the sun consisting of copious amounts of sit-ups and other calisthenics, followed by 15 minutes of jumping rope. Now fully lathered.
It was now time to into Hell, aka, my garage; where the temperature on the big wall thermometer was exceeding 105o degrees (proof available upon request) just leave a comment and I'll send you a picture. To cement this, I closed the garage door and left the one window barely open; dawned my 16 ounce boxing gloves and I punched a 100lb heavy bag for 35 minutes non-stop/w no rest and no water. The wool clothing absorbed the perspiration like a sponge, and the rubber matted floor was dotted with small pools of water, and for the record my max heart rate never exceeded 165 bpm. Big shout-out to Pulsar chest strap heart rate monitors. Yeah-Yeah! After that ordeal I took a couple of sips of water, a cool shower and ate a light lunch, all done. Then to work. That's what using left-over fuel looks like. I have energy; you have energy. I have stamina; you have stamina. I don’t lack any imagination; you don't lack any imagination.
We must stop this incessant dreaming of getting younger. We are still daring; we will intervene when we probably shouldn’t, we will say something instead of saying nothing. We still measure the risk vs the reward. However, the standard by which the reward is measured is now very high, and our rewards are no longer measured by just money. They are measured by our own set of standards. And our standards are so high that we too often fail to see that we have eclipsed our youthful measurables. Maybe we have succeeded, maybe this is the past and we are the future. Is this my imagination or is it reality?
*Just as a disclaimer, always hydrate.*
George Bernard Shaw is wrong, young people don’t waste anything. I am a father of five and I have watched with my own eyes, as my sons devoured multiple gallons of Hi C Orange and Ecto Cooler drinks; countless hamburgers and hot dogs, and more chicken than even Superman could eat. This is all in just one day. BTW this isn’t to excuse the girls. No, they can hold their own too. Children, and rightfully so, want to play all day. These are bodies that want to be free of any constrictions. When I was that age, if there was an option of skipping school and playing basketball at New Cassel Park, all day was available. I would choose the latter, more than likely I probably would have never had graduated High School. Even today, I would likely still choose the latter, if my hips and my knees were more agreeable. This is to be young. But have we really succeeded to our youth? Where did being young stop, and getting older begin? How can we define being young when what we could do in our past, we can still do today, maybe even better? I see young people all day long….and honestly, I have to say but they often look like they are in misery. I find myself sometimes really feeling sorry for them. Like here I am well over 60 having sympathy for a 17-year-old? With their long faces and that look of discontent, as if the iPhone battery just died and no one has a charger. Or the forced communications, as if saying hello is really a conversation? What's going on?
I have watch and seen endless movies, often with young actors in the starring roles. What is young? For me 45 and under? Frankly, if it were up to me, I would just continuously loop Denzel Washington, Jason Statham, and John Wick movies all day (all over 60). The drama in many of today's movies starring many of these young actors is suffocating. Oh, My Goodness. Is anyone happy? Is there anyone, these days under sixty, and happy? My favorite local watering hole is Bonefish Grill, partly because of the pricing but also because bar is shaped like a huge white marble Hockey Stick dotted with the mixed faces of 30 somethings and folks my age, sprinkle in a few 20 somethings (over 21) and it a full house. Everyone chatting and blissfully drinking fairly priced martini's (Monday's $5.00 Martini Night). I have been asked so often what do I do for a living, I really feel like wearing a name tag saying Gardener. One night I asked my bartender, Nelson, why do people, more often younger women, (no subtext here as to me 45-years-old is young). Why do they continually ask me that question? I assumed his reply was going to be something to do with the fact I look like I have money. WRONG...! For the record, I don’t. Not a drop; especially when considering my current marital circumstances. Read into it what you like. His reply, however, was shocking. He said. “I don’t look like I am in misery”. What? Come again? Is that the new pick-up line? Is not being insufferable, attractive now?
I wanted to yell at to him, and all who were within earshot of me; that I am a very proud neurotic chronic complainer…! I can complain with the best them and I can complain and bemoan about anything. Place me in a first-class seat with private cabin service, and I can find something that irritates me. Let me drive a Ferrari 812 and I will inevitably find something to whine about. I can't imagine that anyone could miss that trait. Thank goodness when you’re young, vision is often relegated to eyesight alone. Nelson's reply really caught me off guard, because I remember the 80's and 90's, and all the Calvin Klein ads and commercials that were ubiquitously placed everywhere in NYC. I can still see the face of the models in those ads always looking as if they were happy to be young, like the secret to the jeans was youth. I never saw anyone over sixty in those ads. Shame on Calvin, because everyone in those ads is now us and maybe if he would had had an eye on the future, we would all still be wearing Calvin's.
We are not liabilities. We haven’t forgotten anything, I hear this notion that suggests that I, we have lost a step. A step on what? A step where? We have stepped on and into so many places that if it were not for photographs and UV Lamps, we would be impossible to track. Because of consistency life has nearly become, redundant. Wash, rinse, and repeat. We cannot allow life, at or beyond 60-years-old to become just a matter of redundancy. Getting older is not about digression. It’s more about finding and discovering something new that we never knew we could do. Our years don't define us; we define our years. We mark time by redefining what it means to be older? I want to make this clear. I don't disparage youth and I hope that I haven’t insinuated that notion. Because being young gratefully prepared us for today. Too old is never too old, and we must keep discovering something new and something wonderful about ourselves, and our partners as well.
Not too long ago, a young lady offered to buy me a beer, I am terrible at guessing ages but I could clearly see that she was much younger than me. But who isn't? Anyway, just as I was about to politely say, "Thank but, no thank you". I looked down at the bar and I saw the face of someone who looked happy, and then she said, “I just wanted share a beer you a beer, because you always seem to have nice things to say.” I don’t know who she was, as I didn’t ask her what her name was, but maybe that’s what we had in common, we were strangers, but we weren't unhappy. Contrary to popular belief, misery does not enjoy company. For the recorded I accepted the gesture of kindness, and I thanked her for the beer. As I now look back on that moment, it seems to me that you’re never too young to appreciate being young, and you’re never too old to be grateful for being who you are. I believe that we are grateful, and what people see when they look at us is the image that we want to project about ourselves, and our life. She clearly saw that because "to be young is a good thing...to be old is never to be too old". To make it even clearer, you absolutely can be young and be happy, but you can also be older and just be as happy. Happiness is not mutually exclusive. Everyday we spend living the best life, is one more day we spend putting fuel into the tank and If it runs low, I have been told of a place where all the fuel stations are open 7 days week and 24 hours a day.
If you have or know of anyone who has any stories discussing “Too Young is a Good Thing...To be Old is never to Be Too Old.”
Please feel to share your thoughts and or comments.
