Forever Young

Forever Young

          When I wake up each morning, I take stock in how I feel.  I’m pretty sure everyone does some form of this assessment consciously or subconsciously.  This morning it has been conscious.  To begin with, I awoke at 5:18 after sleeping since 11pm.  My conscious mind said I should go back to sleep for another hour.  When I awoke next at 5:34 I knew it that was all she wrote.  I have no idea why I feel so compelled to get up.  I feel itchy to get out of bed.  Nothing hurt, no sore hip, lumbago or knee pain.  I sit up and stretch my neck to both sides (pillow-based neck issues are the worst), but no kinks this morning.  And its off to the bathroom for daily ablutions.  I have several decisions first thing.  Will I take my diuretic today (convenience and proximity to bathrooms throughout the morning are the criteria)? Will I shave around my beard (anyone who thinks having a beard avoids shaving has not had a beard or is prepared to look like a monkey)? Do I need to thin/trim my beard (an extra 1/8 inch on your face is not at all like an extra inch on your head)?

Are there any other grooming issues at hand (no details provided though I am reminded of a MAD Magazine piece on alternate uses for unwanted nose and ear hairs)? I am blessed/cursed with more hair on my head than I need.  Occasionally, my hairline decides to make a play to reconnect to my faltering eyebrows and I must get out the machete to hack it back. Now that I rarely wear a tie, my neck is sowing its wild oats and sprouting skin tags all around neck/shoulder interface.  I would go to the dermatologist to deal with those, but I keep thinking they will go away by themselves (which they won’t). and then I remember my last visit to a dermatologist where a full skin check was invoked, and I got a lifetime of humility with a college-pal female dermatologist’s poking and prodding. Maybe they will go away by themselves after all. Is there anything else in the mirror that needs attention (I generally tend to ignore rough skin patches or sun spots, even though there are increasing numbers)? Good to go.

I’m sure I had all of this going on when I was twenty-five, but I never had the early morning time on my hands to ponder them so much.  I suspect that as I have less and less livelihood concerns to plague me, I risk spawning a crop of physical issues to occupy my time.  I’m thinking that the best part of staying busy with something that seems compelling and consuming may be that it will reduce my focus on my mirror and whatever horrors that portends. This all has less to do with vanity than it does with excess early morning time on my hands.  I currently have a 90 second commute unless the elevator is busy.  That means I sit and take care of my digital chores, I sit and listen to Morning Joe, and I sit and ponder things to write about today.  I love my morning time because it is so plentiful and feels so productive.  The older I get, the more being productive seems to mean.

I have an interesting dilemma.  Because I have never been in what is called fighting shape, I never know whether what I am feeling on any morning is a function of my state of fitness (or lack thereof) or my natural aging process. I may feel sore one morning, but I tend to blame that on something I did or something I ate.  It never occurs to me to be an aging issue.  In fact, I seem to work very hard to NOT avoid calling myself old or referring to my age (as in this post).  I want to embrace my age.  But the truth is that I don’t feel even the smallest part old.  If I am tired, I attribute it to bad fitness or lack of adequate sleep.  I do not think of myself as tired because I’m old.  That is because I am not old yet.  I have my mother’s genetics to thank for that and here’s the thing.  It has very little to do with the physical aging process that may be going on in my body.  If there were a scanner that measured body aging, I bet I would be right on par in terms of physical deterioration.  I probably also agree that my memory (at least that part that remembers names and places) is degrading due to age.  I also notice people finishing my sentences for me more than they used to. That is less memory and more about forming thoughts and then stalling while I set up my next thought to pace my comments.

So here is my bottom line; I think I stay young because that same dose of serotonin (my generic definition for any brain chemicals that boost feel-good) that has made me feel optimistic, world-changing and ebullient most of my adult life, seems to be boosting my daily feelings of youthfulness.  I want to say, “you’re as young as you feel”, but that causes me to research that notion and there is increasing scientific evidence that there is more to this than meets the ear.

The articles I am reading tell me that if you feel younger, you are younger. Geriatric physicians have concluded that physical age is meaningless considering subjective age, which is the age we feel. Using MRI’s to scan the brain gives medical researchers a better measure of age than looking at the condition of the rest of the body. Feeling young makes us look young, but its biggest benefit may be in the way we interface with society (mostly about what we do with our time) and the way we keep our mind active, open and engaged in creative pursuits.  Therefore, I have said “I write, therefore, I am.”  Writing keeps me open, conscientious, engaged in learning and more agreeable.  Those may be the attributes that make us feel and act younger. I actually get up each morning thinking that I have to write about something enjoyable to me and that propels me out of bed more than anything right now in my life.

There are days that I feel older than others.  That often happens when I think about rock n’ roll heaven and another rocker biting the dust.  As Queen said in their 1980 song:

And another one gone, and another one gone

Another one bites the dust

Hey, I’m gonna get you, too

Another one bites the dust

Meanwhile out on Campaign 2020, we are down to a dozen real candidates as another one seems to bite the dust daily. Joe Biden, the current hot topic of whether age matters, gave a speech in Birmingham yesterday.  It was ostensibly about race and his standing strong against the current rise in racism. But what it really was, as will most of his forthcoming speeches on the campaign trail, was evidence that he is facile and young enough to be President.  When you want to consider what to do next to try to stay forever young, try running for president in the new millennium.