I’m about to hit 55.
As Sammy Hagar used to say, I can’t drive it. But, starting on Monday, for the next year I get to be it.
Yep. It’s birthday time. Like riding on a pickup tailgate, extra spicy anything and just about any drinking game, that’s one more thing that used to be lot more fun than it is now. I’ve been told I am, officially, middle aged. Which I suppose is true if I live to be 110.
The thing about a 55th, well, anything, is it seems like it ought to be a bigger deal than it is. There’s no name for a 55th wedding anniversary. The 55th anniversary of a British monarch taking the throne is known as The Kings Merit Jubilee. Doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, though I imagine it sounds pretty cool when actual British people say it. However, with the accent, I doubt I’d understand them.
It just seems like 55 is stuck there, right in between the far more frequently mentioned 50 and 60 (and that officially ends a streak started in high school where I said I’d never use math again. However, my geometry and calculus streaks are still alive.).
Now at some point over the next few days, someone is going to come up to me, shake his head in that “wow, I can’t believe it’s true” way, and ask, in something vaguely approaching seriousness, “So, what’s it like to be 55?”
To which I will respond in, basically, the same way I did when I turned 50: “Well, I haven’t been at it very long, but unless these gets worse as we go along, not much different than 49.”
But it is a little different, if not than 49, then at least from when I was younger. I’d like to think I’m a little older, and perhaps a little wiser
For one thing, I’ve become even more intrigued with how circular things are. Kind of like in that movie with lions, including the one that sounded like Darth Vader, life really is something of a circle. From here on in, just like when I was younger, the modifier “for his age” is going to be attached to many of the things I do.
The difference then, of course, was “for his age” in my younger days meant “he’s going to get better.” Now, it means “it’s amazing he’s even upright.”
Not that I could ever run faster, jump higher or hit it farther, but the bottom line is, I’m not winning anymore. From here on in, just being there will have to do.
And not that a participation ribbon is all that bad an idea, but I’m fast approaching the time when it’s as amazing a feat as winning, since it means I actually stayed healthy enough to show up. Because, as I’ve grown older, I’ve discovered I can hurt myself doing nothing at all.
I thought about going for a run the other day and pulled a muscle. I have to stretch to get ready to stretch. I hear about professional athletes in their late 30’s who are considered “the old guys” and don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or maybe I’ve just forgotten which I was supposed to be doing. That happens, every now and then.
Of course, my athletic ability isn’t the only thing softening. Thanks to a generational belief that chicken fried steak is a basic food group, my arteries may be hardening, but my opinions aren’t.
The older I get, the more I realize there is a real possibility that, well, I could be wrong. And I can even come to this opinion without the help of someone who is actually married to me. “I don’t know,” is a perfectly good answer, and it is possible, though not necessarily documented, that anyone who disagrees with me is not a idiot. At least not all the time.
This is certainly not my first rodeo, and if life has shown me one thing, it’s that the difference between bull rider and rodeo clown is often just a matter of timing and greasepaint. I’m older. Considering the alternative, that’s not such a bad thing. And if I’m slower, well, more time to smell the roses.
Of course, perhaps I’m underselling the idea of a 55th birthday as a big deal a little. In 1982, in celebration of the king of Thailand’s “big 55,” 700 men had vasectomies as part of a national birth control movement.
So, I’m not here to judge your personal choices, but, guys, ya, well, uh … a card is fine. Really.
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Gary Smith is a recovering journalist living in Rogers