Come on eyes! Hold out another year. I just need one more year.
Next week I celebrate my birthday. The last one in my 40s. A final hoorah before turning 50 next year. It’s kind of scary really. And intimidating. The idea of turning 50 carries so much weight. It’s a milestone, and a midway point. When you start getting those senior discounts. Wait! What? Really?!? And I guess when people can legally start calling you a “senior.”
Ohhhhh. Cruel.
But it weighs on me for other reasons, too. Some more physical. That it might mark when “changes” start to set in. Already I can feel them.
Like my eyesight. Sure, it’s still pretty good at a distance. But up close? It’s like a steamy sauna. A foggy drive with a windshield smeared by a candy car.
Let’s call it dodgy, even with low-grade cheater glasses. Up close, things are getting blurrier. Like menus. Or fingernail clipping. I noticed this one the other day. That if I’m not wearing reading glasses, it’s all guesswork. Random snipping. I’m either taking off several millimeters of fleshy tip, or clipping 5 inches from my nearest digit. I inspected a middle finger later and it was a dead ringer for Mt. Everest. All jagged peaks and crags.
I’ve been holding off going to the eye doctor. I think it’s because I don’t want to finish up my 40s with a diagnosis that reads: “soon-to-be senior needs glasses … because he’s old!”
No thanks. I want one more year before I’m ready to deal with that.
So, I’m faced with heavy choices: Do I start wearing cheater glasses around my neck on a string? Do I carry a magnifying glass? Do I walk around with a chunk of broken glass? It could be functional while also making me look cool and menacing.
But as I get close to that intimidating number next year, I’m finding my eyesight isn’t the only thing that signals change. As if on cue, the looming fifth decade is teasing me with what’s to come.
Like searching for BOGOs! I don’t know when, or why this started, but I didn’t even know what a BOGO (Buy One Get One) was until a few months ago. Then, while I was sleeping, a prophet of the supermarket seniors spoke to me in a dream. He said: “You must go into the world and search out deals that double thou value by begetting you one free for each ye’ buy. Now go and BO-GO!!!”
And just like that, I was hunting for free boxes of instant oatmeal or packages of licorice. I don’t even like to eat them. Is that a sign?
Or how I have a house sweater now. That’s right! Don’t pretend that’s not a thing. I come home from work and immediately reach for a gray zip-up fleece. I’m like Mr. Rogers! I don’t know why this has started. I’m not even cold. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Sensible. Dignified. And a great complement to my house slippers, my newspaper and my pipe.
I find I drink more tea than beer these days. And not like iced tea, either. We’re talking English breakfast … for lunch! And green tea. The antioxidants or something. I don’t know why. I think it tastes like boiled yard waste. But, man, I drink a LOT of tea.
I listen to Broadway musicals almost exclusively. I had a stimulating conversation about rising mortgage interest rates. I took the time to look up the nutritional value of figs. (Who does that?!?) And I’ve found myself saying things like: “You know, back in my day” and then insert some boring activity that no one does any more.
I feel like I’m changing. Metamorphosizing into someone – or something – different. Still me. Or like me. Yet, somehow different. Changed. Or, changing. I don’t know what to make of it. Who this new guy is. It’s not all bad. My retirement fund keeps growing. I don’t eat ketchup soup.
But as the countdown to 50 begins, it has me uncomfortable and anxious and concerned. I don’t need it to come any sooner than it already is. So, I’ll just put off that eye appointment a bit longer. Keep bandaging up my snipped-off finger tips. I might just get a chunk of broken glass to help me read things. All the better to spot those BOGOs in the grocery store.