55+

I wrote this months ago. We were supposed to write from the perspective of a senior citizen.

I've decided to pull it out for such rainy days as these.

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They say I’m old. Being 85 I know they’re wrong.

I’m really old.

The TV reminds me of it everyday. My grandchildren don’t let me forget. Our societies addiction to youth – it’s painful sometimes. The feeling that I've been left behind.

It’s funny how words change overtime. Words are the product of the times they find themselves in. Always changing. I don’t know what they'll change into. I do know what they have been and I know what they are now.

Take the word "cold" for example. When I used to say the word I meant 30 degrees. Now I mean that if the mercury dips below 78, contrary to the words of science, I’m sure I’ll experience mild to moderate hypothermia.

Or the word "time." If this were the currency of life I used to think I was a millionaire. My life was a casino and I slammed the coins like Ol' St. Nick shoves gifts. Squandered is the word I’m looking for. Not cherishing the moment. That kind of thing.

Now the moment is all I have. And even that’s touch-and-go. They say I have a disease that causes me to loose track of the moment. Every day a few more hours fail to show up for the days role call and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to discipline these unruly hours back into my recollection.

It’s not just time but memories too. Sometimes I spend time just looking at old memories - pictures - and pray that I will know them tomorrow.

I don’t drive. I travel by foot on good days and by chair on the not so good days. My roads are the halls of this nursing facility they call my home but known to me as society's doggy bag. Containing the leftovers no one wants but would feel guilty if thrown away.

I don’t really walk. I’ve developed a shuffle that defies the term walk and embraces something that resembles more of a gliding motion. Except without the elegance that you might associate with the word "glide." What allows me to glide are my trusty, worn down slippers. They have holes but I have tape. I'm suspicious that I may have developed an attachment to my slippers that's closer related to the feelings my granddaughter, Elie, has for her Teddy Bear rather than the typical man/shoe relationship.

Fast - Then, 90 - 100 mph. Now, if I can get my right foot in front of my left in under 4 seconds I told Henry, my chess mate, that I may just have to tape a racing stripe on the outside of my slippers.

Sweetheart - When I used to say this word it meant that I was probably trying to woo the heart of some "angel" I had met at the bar.

Now when I say sweetheart I’m usually referring to my daughter.

My precious daughter.

She visits me sometimes. I like it when she brings her kids. My grandchildren. Theres a light in their eyes that reminds me of what I might have possessed years ago. That light fades with time though. Like the sun setting on a soul's reason for living. My daughter still has this light but it’s fading. I remind her to hold on to this precious light but I fear the voice of necessity, bills, career, the relational stresses that are typical of marriage these days are starting to crowd it out.

“Hold on to the light sweetheart. Hold on,” I tell her.

This world is too fast for me. I know this because whenever I turn on the television the images on the screen seem to move too quickly. I’ve written Pringles many times to inform them that if they want me to have my primary care giver buy their product they're going to have to slow there advertisements down so I know what’s going on.

So far no response.

Plots move too quickly as well. They’re underdeveloped. I remember when I was young the plots on the radio shows I listened to took weeks to develop. It gave you time to agonize over the potential out come. Now they're over before they begin and they really aren't that good anyway.

Whippersnapper – I’ve never said this word. Contrary to the common understanding that all old men use the same slang words...they don’t.

Old – Then, 30. Now, me.

I talk to myself a lot. I find that I’m the only one who understands me these days. I knew someone who understood me once, be she left.

Love – Then, something that made me feel good about myself and reduced those guys I called my friends to an afterthought. It was something that had the shelf life of cottage cheese and was as deep as those blow up pools you inflate for your children on a Sunday afternoon.

Now, in a word, Shelby. She was my beginning my middle and my end. The words that left my lips in the morning and the dream that found a place in my waking world. She was were the idea of me and the idea of her vanished. My life was the meadow and she, the wildflowers it contained. She was the Guinevere that made me feel like her Lancelot.

She was the deep end of a real pool.

They say I lived 27 years before I met her, I can’t remember a time before January 12, 1953. The day I realized that poetry, grace, radiant life all could be found in a person. I'm not sure how I wound up with her but I did. By some miracle...I did.

And my life was never the same.

I said words change with time. Love above all else. But it doesn’t simply change. It grows. Its something that makes trying to describe seem pointless. You just need to see it, feel it, know it, be it, for yourself.

And your life will never be the same.

It’s a sad irony that the happiest day of ones life and the saddest can revolve around the same person. Shelby left me. I couldn’t find her. A disease took her without asking for an opinion. I cried and I got angry. I yelled at God but he never yelled back so I stopped yelling. Eventually I stopped talking to him all together. Shelby never came back. Out of loneliness I started talking to God again and I was surprised to find him were I left him.

God - Then, a gumball machine. You put your coin in and you get what you want out. Now he's more like a pinball machine. You put your coin in, you have fun for a while, you feel like you're in control and everything feels great. Until the ball gets launched into some cornor of the machine where it sits there for what would seem like an eternity. It sits there until it gets launched out at lightning fast speeds into a bumper that sends it into another bumper over and over again until you wonder if you're playing at all. You eventually realize you're not in control. You never were.

When you get this old you realize that the friends of all those years, the good, the best and the forever types of friends have all gone. Its when it becomes clear that forever isn't as long as you thought it was. It's when those you love have all gone over to the other side. Some people call death the great mystery. When you're this old you tend to see it more like a party bus. Promising to take you to were they are. The ones you love. The one you love. Were your heart truly resides but hadn’t realized it until about 79 or so.

And so I wait. content with the bird's songs in the morning, the shadows of the evening and the memories of long ago at night to keep me company. Sometimes I feel forgotten. But that’s ok. I know my family loves me. They’re busy.

It’s impressive what I don’t remember these days. It’s a miracle if I can remember to use the bathroom myself.

But the beauty of what I do remember is beautiful enough for me.