I'm seventy-one. I'm not proud of that; I'm not ashamed of it. It's just what I am until I become something else (ideally, older, but that's not as much in my control as I had once hoped).
I still have ALL my own teeth but have been wearing corrective eyewear for close to thirty years. My hair has been going grey for decades. Our father's hair, he used to tell us, was grey by the time he was nineteen leading him to endlessly quip 'Just because there's snow on the roof doesn't mean the fire's gone out.' I get it now; I didn't then.
My hair is thinning. Just about nowhere else on my body can I make that claim. Some mornings getting out of bed is so arduous I'm tempted to just lie there until lunch or later. I can remember being a kid and not being able to wait until I was all grown up. I was an idiot. If you can, turn back! It doesn't get any better and the ending is just horrible.
I'm kvetching not just because I always do but because of this happy little headline from CNN.com.: These 8 habits could add up to 24 years to your life, study says. Here's the rub: you get those 'added' years back at the end of your life.
I'd be a lot more enthused at the idea if I were able to add them back when I was twenty-five. Now we're talking! Tacking them on at seventy-one isn't the thrill the report's authors think it is, believe me. Although two dozen more years of 'early bird specials' does have a certain appeal.
Or how about this news item from Fortune.com? Harvard scientists have identified a drug combo that may reverse aging in just one week. Who wouldn't sign up to rent a rat suit and stand in for a drug cocktail, right? Sort of like Dunbar in Catch-22 wanting a longer life and when asked why, answers, 'Because what else is there?' After all, what's a heaven for, right?
-bill kenny
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