istherelifeafter50

I don’t sleep anymore, at least not without the aid of sleeping aids like Celestial Sleepytime tea or a mild sleeping tablet. Once you get over fifty your body reminds you of the frailties of life, most of which you keep to yourself lest others find you less than perfect.

My hair is falling out. I have male pattern baldness. Now having shaved my head on a couple of occasions I know I have an ugly bald head. Life just seems to be so unfair. Why was I subject to the gene pool that dictated I go bald instead of maintaining my beautiful flowing thick red locks?

I have a cyst on my forehead. A lump the size of a pea to me but according to my doctor is not even worth examining. Every spring I have an out break of psoriasis across the bridge of my nose and eyelids (and strangely enough the back of my knees!) requiring special creams. Certain teeth ache more than others suggesting future problems. Having already received five crowns and an under the gum teeth scraping over the last couple of years that is something I’ll put off a little longer.

I have developed a snapping scapula on my right shoulder that causes my shoulder blades to be further apart than the average persons and aches constantly just from daily use. Because of it my neck muscles are constantly bunched to compensate for the lack of power in the right shoulder. It prohibits a fool range of motion in the joint, I can’t turn my head, do push ups or lift weights with behind the head movement.

I managed to develop a hiatel hernia, right under the sternum. It makes the extra weight that I’m battling (down 20 pounds since the first of the year) extend further as I have no muscle wall to hide it behind. Again the doctor pronounces it is inoperable, just strengthen the muscle. However it prohibits me from sit ups or crunches as that just pushed the hernia out further like some alien being attempting to disembowel me from inside out. My personal trainer has me doing lots of excercises where I suck the belly button into my backbone and I swim often.

Over the last couple of years I have developed some type of prostate problem. It is enlarged slightly; I know because I monitor how I pee. It gets me up at night and sometimes it is a steady flow other times barely a dribble. So I know that at some point I’m going to have a problem. Other than that it works just fine and I keep telling the wife she better take advantage while its available. I have had constipation problems since I was a young lad, and now monitor the bran content in my diet regularly. Having had hemorrhoid problems on and off over the years this is a must.

My back and legs ache when I run. I’m sure the extra weight contributes to the knee pain but it’s a catch twenty two. You got to move to lose the flab so what do you do but move, take Aleve and try to forget the frailties. I hike often and am always getting blackened toe nails that take forever to peel off and grow back. Skin flaps have developed on my inner thighs and rub off and bleed when I walk, run or hike unless I use Vaseline and long shorts! I have to use special scrubs to ward off the little imperfections that grow on my sides and arms, and to keep the bottom of my feet from cracking.

For those of you that read this and have yet to discover the age of fifty enjoy life while you are younger because as you get older it takes a lot more out of your physical body to still enjoy the wonderful things you do and take for granted as a young person. Even those of us that are relatively fit at the half century mark find out the physical limitations that our human bodies impose, whether we like it or not.

Can’t say I’ve discovered the benefits of turning fifty yet.

Bosses still got on your shit. 

The wife still expects the dishes washed if she cooked (and she expects me to cook occasionally too).

Your family expects you to pay for the meal when you take every out since you the man now you got older.

Responsibilities take a bigger toll on you physically and financially.

Weight is easier to gain and exercise is less desirable to maintain.

The longer your married the sex is less frequent; at least that’s still fun though.

College age girls just think you’re a dirty old man. Well if they didn’t expose so much skin you wouldn’t have to look right? Except if you have a beard and dress like a professor then you get some respect.

My hair gets less on my head and more on my back, and my hearing and sight are diminshed.

I’m still in bed at 8pm only now I’m going to sleep, except that I wake up to pee at 2am (damn prostate) and then can’t sleep.

Oh yes I forgot there is that AARP card. Most places don’t give you age discounts until you turn at least fifty five so I have a couple of years to go before I reap that benefit but hey I can get into the SAHBA Home Show for two bucks off.

I must do more driving on a Saturday than I realized. Last week I wrote about the ‘70’s music and again as I tuned into 94.9 MIX-FM on my drive back from Arivaca I found myself pleasantly singing along to the old hi songs. As I did I realized the sense of empowerment I felt listening because the 1970’s where for me that age of independence; they represent the end of school, the start of work, leaving home, going college in America and finally marriage. I link music to all the times in my life; memory links I suppose.

I recall lunch times in my last year of school where I got to lay on the floor in Irvine Lott’s living room and finally break free from the shackles of big band and Olivia Newton-John to listen to the David Bowie album Diamond Dogs and marvel at the art work on Aladdin Sane. Phil Chapell introduced Carol King and Harry Nielsen in the hours we spent in his bedroom talking about girls and Everton.

Our chemistry teacher took a group of lads climbing in Leek and at the top of the cliffs we conquered we took over the pub’s round bar and I recall playing my favorite song over and over on the juke box, Hot Chocolates Emma.

After school was out and I started work at Owen Owens department store in Wolverhampton’s  Manders Centre I used to ride the elevators in the morning transporting the crème cakes from the shipping docks, where I worked, to the restaurant on the top floor. I used to lick the crème filling out of the cakes and nick the cherries. Then I’d go visit with Molly in Women’s Clothing. Molly and I had started on the same day. I recall her bright red lipstick and pageboy hair cut and to this day recall her whenever I hear Rock the Boat, the Hues Corporation lone hit. Kung Fu Fighting was on the juke box at the pub we eat lunch out just across the street from the store, and when we moved to Gnosall and I worked for HHS in Stafford lunch always involved a vodka and lime at the juke box favorite Frankie Valli My Eyes Adored You. I just wanted to carry some girls books home from school. I had no girl just a lonely 38 year old housewife flirting with me and wanting to give me a ride home. Bleh!

College bought an opening to so many changes; monumental ones. A new country, women and sex for the first time. Her name was Debbie and she stole my heart. While recovering from missing her during the summer of ’75 I discovered Yes and their arty album covers and danced at dorm parties to a routine with KC & The Sunshine Band, Get Down Tonight. I still recall ripping the seat out of my favorite bell bottoms by going down to my knees to soon in the routine. Sherman West played Whipping Post for me and the Allman Brothers and Southern Rock entered my sheltered musical out look.

After I married Debbie I have pleasant memories of our times together (since we didn’t get divorced until ’81 it is not all bad). Her swollen pregnant belly, seeing my first son born in the birthing room at Dr Charles Taylors clinic, and enjoying the feelings of young love (okay the sex and then the sex) while we listened to Earth Wind and Fire and went to see Diana Ross, Seals and Crofts and Bread in concert. After we separated for the first time I remember holding her and dancing slowly while John Lennon sang Woman.

My links to happiness seem to be rooted in ‘70’s music. Rock on!

We’ve all seen in happen. Give a child a toy and there is a huge amount of interest immediately that slowly peters out during the succeeding days. The same can be said for video games. I can recall playing games that I have since discarded. I have a Sims game on my computer that I love to play but I haven’t opened for over a year. It’s not that I don’t want to, or that I am bored with it, I just have other more pressing things to do. I even opened a Second Life account and became an avatar but my computer system was not at the correct speed and it took for ever to do anything and I wasn’t prepared to spend real money on it either, so I never did get the opportunity to use all the technical aspects of the game, it was pretty complicated; wasn’t worth my time.

Did you ever stop and think perhaps all we are to God, or whatever ‘supreme being’ you believe put us on earth and manipulates our lives. Perhaps he too is bored with the game. Doesn’t want to keep spending his time on a world where no matter what he does the players don’t conform. That could be the reason we see so many “end-time” related happenings. Perhaps the supreme game player told himself you know I like the game but I have other things to do. I don’t want to abandon it completely but how can I spend less time playing. I know lets have some tornadoes and typhoons, AIDS and plagues and famine. That will kill off half of them so I won’t have to waste so much time on this game; I can have more fun playing the new Madden ’09 Lucifer’s League.

They say it’s too late to teach an old dog new tricks but I wonder, does that apply to humans too. Occasionally the fate of the modern world as we know it lies heavily upon my shoulders. I mean should I care about the condition that we leave the world for the upcoming younger generation? Most of them don’t respect or appreciate us baby boomers so fuck ‘em; what do I care about greenhouse gasses. I’ll be dead and they’ll have to deal with it right! Then I remember that my kids and grandkids will probably have to where masks to breath and deal with all the futuristic crap we leave behind just as our parents generation had to handle the smog the industrial revolution left them. It has become almost impossible to turn on the television, or pick up a periodical, without reading or hearing about our frail eco-system, and what we should do as a nation to turn it around before we all melt into a little puddle as the ozone layer disappears and the sun finally just fries us.

As much as dislike being told what to do, especially by someone who appears as pompous as Al Gore, I must admit he has bought to the forefront a lot of the problems we face with global emissions. I hate to see the North Pole disappearing, the smog produced by none caring Eastern European and Chinese companies that still use lead and dyes that America attempted to ban years ago, and thousands of pounds of waste being left literally on our doorstep in Arizona by illegal aliens poring over our borders. It almost seems like the poor depressed people of the world not only don’t care about the problems of disposing of their trash and poisonous gasses and debris but they want to burden us in America with finding away to dispose of it all.

As a nation America is leading the push for the rest of the world to be more diligent in their efforts to combat the gaseous emission problems. Ingenious ideas spring forth  to stop global emissions. I just read an article in a recent Time magazine that dealt with how the shipping industry is turning back the hands of time and using air power to propel ships. (Jim Crace writes of the end times in his novel The Pesthouse; how Americans are migrating from the West coast to walk across the country to catch sail boats back to Europe). Albeit it is now all computerized, and uses kites instead of sails -not quite as romantic an appeal as the sailing ships of yore-, but apparently they have been effective in reducing fuel usage by up to 25%.

What can I do individually to make a difference daily is the challenge I face? The problem as I see it is so huge that for the longest time that I could not fathom anything that I could do that would really make a difference. I car pool  but that is more because the cost of gas being so astronomically high that it makes sense to save a buck on gas, not to save gas so there was less pollution being produced. I could drive slower. No wait, that’s not going to happen, let’s find something more realistic; recycle. Should be easy enough but it takes a lot of work. First off I would have to divide up all the plastic, newspaper, glass and aluminum, For goodness sake who has the time for that; just chuck it all in the same plastic bag and put it out for the garbage men to pick up. It is not like a recycle guy is going to come by and haul the individual bags away.
I remember seeing the recycle center in the parking lot of the YMCA. You mean I have to divide it up, haul it away in my car, and spend time putting the right product in the right dumpster and drive out of my way to get there in the first place? I don’t think so. Just put it in the garbage. Now if the city would just drill large holes in the sidewalk outside each house, label them Plastic, Paper, Aluminum, Glass, so all I have to do is walk outside and dump it in the correct container well then perhaps I would do that. Of course they would have to redesign all the garbage trucks to have big vacuum hoses to drive by and suck each one out independently. City Hall would have to go to a lot of time and expense to do this just to make me happy so it is probably not going to happen.

Since moving to Oro Valley from Tucson I am now privileged to have a truck come by every week and pick up recyclable garbage, and the company even provides containers to pull out to the curb so after a few weeks of moving my wife finally convinced me, kicking and screaming all the way, to start using the service, and for the most part we now do, though I think we are just providing income for the old lady down the block as she appears to lift everyone’s aluminum cans before they are disposed of. And notice I said everyone’s. That’s right, as a community our townhome owners all appear to actively participate in the weekly ritual of recycling.

So is it making a difference? One of the things that I have learned in my employment is that as I attempt to put together my monthly quota to help the office maintain their monthly goal every part of my daily accomplishment pushes my total closer to the goal. As I often hear repeated, every drop fills the bucket. I like to think that the little I accomplish with my daily dividing of recyclable trash does the same. I am helping the country reach its goal in my own minuscule way. If we can all do that then we too will be helping fill that invisible bucket. I do not know if it really makes a difference on a global scale, but I have to assume that the principle works, just on a large scale. I doubt that it will really make a difference in the quality of air earth’s inhabitants will breath in fifty years so I still pity my grandkids but hey they can’t say Poppa didn’t try.

“With sweat still stinging my eyes I write. I sweat from walking hard. I just took a three mile turn around the neighborhood in an effort to shed those pounds that doggedly attached themselves to me quietly over the last couple of years. The instant I walked in the door I mounted the scales to record the repulsive 239lbs in this missive so now everyone knows what a fat hog I have become. I need to shame myself in to doing something about it because I have become tired and bored with myself. I am ashamed every time I look in a mirror, or walk past a window and cast a glance to see the fat fool that I no longer recognize looking back. Hell, I can balance a glass on the shelf my stomach makes when I sit! Age itself has cast a pall on me too with wrinkles and pains that I fight daily. I am so depressed over the way I am aging that I think I just threw in the towel last year. This year must be about fighting back. I’m tired of feeling down, bitter, tired and old. I’m, only 52 for Christ’s sake; I should not be in this kind of shape.
Just five short (long) years ago I had just come off my infamous Appalachian Trail hike and was only 190 lbs. I need to get to somewhat resemble the man I was then again. I was running marathons, and all though I weighed 220 lbs at the time at least I was fit; now I’m just fat. Granted I have developed an inoperable hiatal hernia that causes what I have to extend even further than need be. If I attempt sit ups I look like some alien life form has invaded my stomach cavity so I have to find a way to trim up without sit ups. My shoulder injury will not allow me to lift weight much over 20 lbs so I am limited in choices. I guess walking and running along with cutting calories will have to do it.
I can only hope that as I improve myself my attitude will improve as will my life style. I seemed to have a lot of tough breaks this past year, especially the last six months, many of them financially so I am ready for the gods to smile favorably for a change. I will do my best to prepare myself and perhaps that will be just enough to attract what I need.”

I wrote this in January at my other blog Bollocks. I have since joined another gym and gotten a personal trainer and a new diet. I have dropped to 225 pounds so far with 200 being the goal for the end of the year. I run in the mornings at 4am before it gets too hot or walk from my office to my wife’s office so we can car pool together the ten miles home. I have cut out, for the most part, all carbs; no potatoes, rice, pasta and very little bread. When I do eat foods outside of my allowed food group then I make sure I have smaller portions. It is working for me so far. Work is improving, the wife got a job and the worm has turned.

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve done larger things, but not better things.

We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We’ve conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We’ve learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stock room..

Little kids are not afraid of anything. Climbing walls, jumping into swimming pools, roller coasters. They just laugh and scream and have a great time.

As we get older that feeling of invincibility goes away. No longer do we derive pleasure from standing on the side of a step cliff and looking down. We are afraid if taking a chance. We learned from life that we can get hurt, whether from the angst of love or from a biting sarcastic boss. The bullies we faced in high school have been replaced by intimidating employers and we don’t want to take the chance of losing our job because, I mean how would we make the house payment, keep the wife in flowers every week. We’re afraid of being boring and taking or being taken advantage of.

When we were kids we couldn’t wait to grow up so we could break the rules and do anything we wanted to do. When we become responsible adults we come to realize that there is still always someone dictating our lives to us anyway. Things don’t really change that much. You still get hurt falling from great heights.

Some of us are lucky. We get a second or third chance at love. I have peaked at my fifth attempt. It seems so impossible now to ever contemplate being with any one else. So much time and effort to get to this point I don’t think I could ever stand the disappointment of life without my wife. Middle age is not a place to be alone without prospects.

Both my sister and brother are separated and divorcing their spouses. My sister on her fifth attempt and my brother too. (Don’t ask; must have been something in the water my mother drank when she was pregnant!) It is much more heart breaking for a woman approaching fifty or older than a guy. A least as guys we can be dogs and get laid but that is even difficult for a woman of mature years. My wife and I just enjoyed dinner at the home of a dear friend. I met her through my divorce recovery group six or seven years ago and she too is going through the pangs of a relationship gone wrong. It has been about a year since she was with her last boyfriend and I see how desperately a woman misses just the companionship, not to mention the romance.

I am so thankful for the chance I have been given and how I have grown in this relationship so that I can communicate and work out the occasional kink in the marriage rope. I don’t ever want to be out there, lonely and looking for love again.

As I was driving the boring ninety minute slog back from Phoenix airport to Tucson, having dropped my son off to catch his flight back to Oklahoma, I tuned in to some oldies radio station. It was then that I realized that thanks to my mother, I knew all the words to Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. 

I lived a rather sheltered life as a teenager, under the proverbial thumb of my father, a minister. An occasional Beatles song or Olivia Newton John was about as wild as the music scene got in our house. I did learn an appreciation for big band music as I was allowed to play the old 78’s. I actually went on the play trombone - yes, a band geek - in the school orchestra and tried to emulate Glen Miller. It wasn’t until my last years in high school that I gained an appreciation for Carol King, David Bowie, Harry Nilsson (The Point was a great album); as my friends became a little more diversified so did my music tastes. Now I love the old time rock and roll and am able to pass on my tastes to my teenage son, who I was very proud of this morning when he said “that was Led Zepplin right?” Yes!

Still it does seem like the worm has turned. Last summer I had to explain to my Mum the real meaning behind that delightful song by America, Horse With No Name. I don’t think she’ll be singing that one again any time soon!