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My Uncle Nunzi had told me it would happen. Even the great Bob Dylan tried to tell me in song that it surely would befall my lot. Uncle Nunzi just said one day you wake up and feel invisible, as if what you think doesn’t really matter anymore. Dylan put it more lyrically.
Age is only a number, the optimists say. And I reply, but who among us doesn’t wish that number were lower? It’s like you’re racing to escape the anonymity that is thrust upon you, but you find out you’re racing on a treadmill.
The worst thing about old age is when you realize you have no future. The future is for other folks. No more being in it for the long haul. It’s tough to take the long-range view of things when you know that you won’t be around for them.
It is very difficult to realize you have accomplished all the things you are ever going to accomplish, and those you haven’t, likely won’t ever be. Old age is knowing that your epitaph has already been written, the rest is just playing out the string.
The good health you have always taken for granted is being chipped away; so much time waiting in the doctor’s office, blood tests are a way of life. Blue Cross receipts and Medicare statements are most of the mail.
The most frightening thing about it all is the way you are dehumanized. Try to escape the stereotype being thrust upon you at every turn. People see you as a drag upon productive society, a spinner of old tales about people no one ever heard of or cared about. You lose your frame of reference slowly. Over time it disappears. Someone asks who is the best throwing right fielder you ever saw play, and you answer, "Carl Furillo." Your reply is greeted at first by a strained silence, and then a chuckle. No one remembers Furillo and you know it is their loss. Should you limit yourself to hanging with those who are old enough to have heard of Furillo? I prefer to educate people about him.
Those who program radio and television stations have long believed the tastes of older people do not matter in the popular scheme of things. Advertisers believe seniors tend to hang on to their stuff and are difficult to get to try new things, so they place ads on programs likely to attract a younger demographic. When you fall out of the desired demographic, you officially become invisible.
I have grown weary trying to defy the stereotype. My musical tastes span the decades from Frank Sinatra to Van Morrison to Lucinda Williams, but in the end only a few people really care. But I care. The whole game is young people keep intentionally changing what’s hip so they can keep their hipness all to themselves. I remember my dad taking his grandson to a KISS concert and enjoying the music. The rest of us laughed at the old man trying to seem young. Actually, it was just dad digging KISS. The brutal reality of the youth culture, which dominates us today, is it is a closed society. Well, hipness based on age ain’t hip at all.
Sundays after football are for sorting out where we are and where we are headed. As such, they can be the most frightening days of the year.
In a way, I envy those in my age group who have made their peace with the nonsense of old age. They don’t look at retirement as the stage before the final demise. They enjoy the new-found elasticity of time. They don’t long for being in the rat race. Me, I’m one of the unlucky ones that keep running from it, running in a race I know I will never win. But I will keep on running as long as I can.
They can try to narrow my world until there is nothing left. They can invent nice little ghettoes where they house us and call them "over 50 communities." I know it’s a fight I’m going to eventually lose, but I’m going to go down trying.
This is a quiet Sunday. I don’t listen to as much music as I would like to these days. I have the time to listen, but not the frame of mind, if you know what I mean. Dylan seems like he’s singing to me in his weary voice. He must have been having a rough Sunday when he wrote this one: And I’m feeling it in my bones —
People on the platforms, waitin’ for the trains, I can hear their hearts-a-beatin’, like pendulum swingin’ on chains.
When you think that you’ve lost everything, you find out you can always lose a little more.
I’ve been walkin’ that lonesome valley,
Tryin’ to get to heaven before they close the door.
