On Aging

 I was at the dentist this morning when I had another one of those moments when I realized I am getting older. Thankfully it was not one of those moments when I sneeze and pull a muscle in my back which leads to three days of agony and Advil. Instead it came gently in conversation.

I will also note that it has been several years now since I felt the need to measure up every person I meet as a possible sexual partner or competitor. I cannot say when that changed. I hope it was enough years ago that my toxic masculinity has not been on prominent display for too long. I point this out because of the conversation with the young woman at the dentist's office might sound flirtatious without this qualifier. It was not in absolutely any way. 

We were chatting as she set up to work on my mouth. I am still a little sore from the most recent drop off the motorcycle. Don't read too much into that either. I fell on Saturday afternoon and this happened Monday morning. I had made some comment about the chair angle being a bit awkward because I was sore. She asked why. I explained and joked that I might not be too old to ride, but I am certainly too old to be falling off in the drive way. 

Pro tip: Don't talk about your age to a medical professional who has immediate access to your chart. Her comment was," Oh, my Dad was born in '80." I laughed and said," Old enough to be your father and I bet my oldest kid is older than you." She shares her birthday. Yes. Taila is two years older. What is this child, this baby, doing working on my teeth? Holy cow. She is half my age, and this is shocking to me because I realize that my perception of people working in doctor's and dentist's offices is flawed. 

I think of medical professionals as smart, caring, experienced, and older than me. This is incorrect. I think about the people I have dealt with in the dentists office and the majority of them are significantly younger than me. I won't say they are all half my age, but I have a decade on most of them. This is also shocking to me. On the plus side it occupies my brain for most of the time she has her hands and gadgets in my mouth which is never something I am totally relaxed and comfortable with. Granted, I will take it over proctology. 

The world marches on. It is an interesting phenomenon. On the drive home I wonder if the dentist I went to as a kid is still alive. He was older than my parents. I wonder if my PCP in my teen years is still around and if he is practicing. This leads to strange ponderings about teachers from when I was in elementary and middle school. For the first time in many years I wonder if I left any impression on these people the way they did mine. In a career full of patients, students, teeth, or however you measure these things from a professional perspective how does one individual weigh on the professional life of another? 

I remember being a kid and thinking the people who worked at McDonald's were all old. That started changing in my teen years as people my age were often behind the counter. I remember that they started looking young to me when they were closer in age to my oldest kid than they were me. That was a perspective shift. It probably helped me stop going to fast food restaurants as much. 

I also felt the moment that I started being the old guy in the comic book or game store. Sure, I wasn't the only old guy there. In most situations the people there were more commonly my age than young people, but I feel like this is a change in culture from when I was a kid. I spent a considerable amount of time in game stores, comic book shops, and hobby shops growing up. 

I remember being a kid afraid to touch anything. I remember being a teenage wondering why the old guy in sweat pants with his pocket t-shirt tucked in came in. We typically judged until the old guy either proved himself to be a weirdo or a dude who had been in the hobby a long time and count lay down serious knowledge. There is nothing like deep nerd lore. That is the deep Magick. I know this because now I am one of the old guys who has it. 

I do not wear sweat pants out of the house. When I wear them in the house, my t-shirt is not tucked into them nor does it have a pocket. I have nothing against pockets on t-shirts in particular. Just a memory of a cool old guy... or maybe an old guy that I used to think was cool. 

This aging thing isn't unpleasant. The unexpected perspective shifts are a bit wild at times. I try and avoid the generational war as much because I have no idea where I would enlist as the fact I think it is ridiculous. My great grandparents knew how to maintain the homes, vehicles, farm, raise live stock, and prepare and preserve food. My grandparents knew all of this lived through two world wars and saw the country and the world change through indoor plumbing, telephones, TV, and eventually the internet. My parents still helped on the farm in their youth. I am not sure what we really did other than grow up on video games, cable TV, and the birth of the home computer and the internet. 

I like people of all ages. One of my favorite people is going to be 7 this year. Another of my favorites is approaching 70 in a year or so. I am just glad that I am getting to enjoy getting older. It is pretty neat. I am forty-two after all. We all know that is the answer to the question.