The Dreaded Three-Letter Word — Christopher A. Lane

Getting old sucks. It really does. If you’ve made it past the age of about 35 or 40, you probably already have a pretty good idea of how much it blows, and is otherwise, not very much fun whatsoever.

I’ve been thinking about just how badly aging vacuums like a Dyson (never losing suction) lately because of three things.

First, studies have now shown that the average American has aged approximately 17.4 years in the past six months. That means that if you were approaching the big 4-0 back in March, you are now eligible for membership in AARP. (If Kevin Costner can AARP, why not you?)

I am planning to lean hard into this major life event, embrace it, learn from it, and be all that I can be at this particular juncture in my time on earth.

Second, I’m in the thick of it. Not AARP. (I get their mailings and deposit them in the trash with a disdainful grunt and usually a follow-up argument with myself about how I’m not AARP-old. Yet.) In truth, my next birthday, which is only a matter of weeks away, is one of the gigantors - a real zero-bearing, decade-celebrating, you’re-older-than-dirt, as old-as-Methuselah reminder that age isn’t just a number. It’s a reality that truly bites.

(Editor’s note: I am planning to lean hard into this major life event, embrace it, learn from it, and be all that I can be at this particular juncture in my time on earth, giving thanks for the many, m-a-n-y laps I have been allowed to make around the sun.)

(Editor’s note: Or maybe I’ll just lean hard into bald-faced denial, embrace it, learn from it, and pretend that this particular juncture is an illusion that doesn’t even exist. Birthday? What birthday? I don’t need no stinkin’ birthday!)

(Editor’s note: Probably the latter.)

(Editor’s note: For sure the latter.)

Second... wait, third, in addition to dealing with my impending birthday with great maturity (er... cross out that word - exchange “maturity” for “crazy, wack-minded, young-at-heart denial”), I have also been watching time and entropy and gravity and all the other laws of thermodynamics and Newtonian physics conspiring nefariously to do not-so-nice things in the life of my mother-in-law.

Now before you admonish me for being cruel, let the record show: she’s old and she knows she’s old. So, as far as I can determine, it’s a-okay to come out and just say the word. I realize that in the current, politically correct, hyper-kneejerk environment, verbalizing the geographical origin of certain deadly viral strains or employing terms like (gasp!) male and female in social conversation can, as Chris Tucker once put it - get you kilt! Thus typing the dreaded three-letter no-no word describing the effect of senescence on individuals is risky and could result in being pigeon-holed as an agist (which is right up there with slanderous, reputation-sullying labels like meat-lover, gun-owner and HOA board member.)

I’m okay with that. Why? Because I am going to proceed very carefully, with love and grace. And with this huge disclaimer (see below).

Huge disclaimer for the sole purpose of ensuring that I have a place to sleep tonight: I love my mother-in-law. I really do. She’s a very exotic and interesting and colorful woman with a fascinating heritage, a storied past, and many tales to tell. She’s great! Really. I’m not kidding.

It’s a short-term, super extended, not forever, who-knows-how-long “visit.”

I’m tiptoeing along here for this purpose: my exotic, interesting, colorful mother-in-law with the fascinating heritage, storied past, and tales to tell has come to live with us. This is a long, short-term, super extended, not forever, who-knows-how-long “visit.” She may be here for a matter of weeks, months, or (gulp) years. So the way I look at it, while she’s under our roof, she’s fair game for blogs. It’s the price of admission in our household.

Back to the topic at hand: she’s old. This has resulted in rapidly deteriorating health. She’s in a wheelchair. She requires a lot of care. A LOT. Thankfully, Fran and I are both working from home right now so we can handle this. We manage this through a 99.9% /.01% split. Fran takes the 99.9, I bear the .01. In my defense, most of the work involves things I am not at liberty to perform. Enough said. Therein, Fran attends to most meals, dressing, meds, and a whole bunch of “enough said.” I take it upon myself to do dishes, hook her mom up with snacks, tune the television to Blue Bloods, and I roll her outside (when it’s not snowing). I also make margaritas on Friday nights - a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. I’m willing to make those kinds of sacrifices for mi familia.

Being this close to not only my own getting-really-oldness, but that of another person who has decades on me and is way down in the depths of old, has had a sobering effect. It has caused me to pause, contemplate, reexamine, and reevaluate my priorities.

For instance, it motivated me to dig out my skateboard. It is now displayed prominently in the garage. I haven’t ridden it in years, but it’s now there, where I can easily access it. I looked at it just this morning as I rolled the trash cans to the curb. And I thought about riding it. I thought: Wow, that would be fun to ride that thing, unless, of course, I fell off and broke something. Then I went back into the house.

Also, I’ve begun to wonder if moving south might be good idea. Our home is currently being kept at a sweltering 78 degrees for the purposes of ensuring that certain elderly members of the family who are wrapped in multiple layers of fleece don’t turn into blocks of ice. (However, the constant complaint, along with “I want more butter on my toast!” and “No, I won’t take those pills!” has been “It’s so cold in here!”) Knowing that stage in my own downward spiral is not that far down the road, why not jump ship, move to Mexico and let Senor Sol warm my decrepit bones?

It’s the perfect storm.

This might all sound like a mid-life crisis. I assure you it’s not. Short of Elon Musk inventing a time machine and inviting me to try it out, I’m hell and gone from halfway. No, this is a late-stage life crisis created by a significant birthday and an unexpected geriatric houseguest, fanned to inferno stage by a pandemic, wildfires, hurricanes, riots, and political unrest. It’s the perfect storm.

Really, what’s the harm in dreaming about living in the Baja, writing novels beneath the palapa, skateboarding... actually, surfing (!) the days away? I hear the margaritas aren’t too shabby down there either.

Of course, on the other hand, there’s always... Hang on....

What? Blue Bloods and a piece of toast with lots of butter...? Ok! Coming!

Excuse me. Duty calls.