I Call Bullshit

They say, 50 is the new 30. I’ve also heard that,60 is the new 40. So I guess it stands to reason, that 65 must be the new 45, right?

Bullshit!

Sorry to shine my insignificant little pen light, on what seems to be a very wide scale (and accepted) deception, but I gotta tell you, in my case (and I don’t think I’m the f**king anomaly!) 65, feels like 75 or even 80, at times!

WTF? Why didn’t “they” mention this?

Yeah, yeah, I know… I’ve bitched about this before and you’re sick of hearing it; but you just wait. You just wait till the bottom drops out on your fit & feisty fifty-something, or your strong & sexy sixty-something starts to sag! You’ll see…

It won’t be all winks and giggles then!

One ordinary day, you could get up, go off to work and 6-7 hours later have your world crushed by two inexplicable auto-immune diseases! Or maybe, while you’re out for that nice, easy, daily jog, you’ll feel a blinding pain in your chest, that drops you to your knees and changes your life forever. It might be that constant, innocuous pain in your gut… you know, the one that you claim is just agita? …is it, is it really?

“Hey, don’t get pissed at me, I’m just sayin…

Regardless of what gets you, your life could be irrevocably changed in the blink of an eye.

Sure, my 50’s and early 60’s were pretty mellow… I felt good. I was active, mentally with it, socially & politically up to date. I thought I was in control! Hell, I even looked like I could have been in my 40’s (Ok, f**k you… my LATE 40’s!)

I too had been conned into believing the bullshit about 60 being the new 40… and I walked around acting like it was true. Why the hell not? If figuratively I was in my 40’s, I’d have maybe what… another 20, 30, maybe even 35 years before the shit hit the fan, right?

…but then, without warning, the axe fell.

Sixty-three was my ill-fated number; the shit started flying at sixty-three.

That was the year of unexpected death, unwavering grief, two auto- immune diseases, stress up the ying yang and doctor approved corticosteroid dependency (along with all the evil and wicked side effects, that went along with that!)

Sixty-four and sixty-five have been just as eventful; with cataracts in both eyes, (requiring surgery), unexplained neuropathy in both feet, a total, titanium knee replacement and what can only be described as constant and very inconvenient and bothersome IBS (Irritable bowel syndrome)! Oh and I’m still taking copious amounts of corticosteroids! (I should look like Arnold Schwarzenegger by now, but they’re not that kind of steroid, unfortunately!)

I won’t even mention the constant fatigue, breathlessness, skin that looks like I peeled it off a the back of a Komodo dragon, and yes, my favourite… WAVY HAIR!

A short digression…

All my life, my hair has been thick, dark and stick straight! I liked it stick straight… I knew what to do with it… it worked for me! Short, straight and spiky! …but now, because of the dreaded steroids, it’s mousey brown (with a helluva lot of grey), it’s unruly, wicked matronly and WAVY!

Well, ya know what? Right here with ya ‘sixty is the new forty.’

It’s a bold face lie and I for one am not buying it! If the cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies can convince us that we are younger than we really and that we can all live forever, we’ll continue to buy their supplements (which, by the way, contain shit like titanium dioxide, butylated hydroxytoluene and sodium benzoatesnt); and we’ll continue to slather our bodies with creams and oils that contain snake venom, rat shit and God knows what all!

We do this in a pathetic and feeble attempt to not grow old and to not die!

…but we are growing old. And we are dying.

Let’s face it 65 is 65; it’s not 45, it’s not 50…. no matter how much we want to believe that it is. It’s time to face facts kids… the end is nigh. And I hate to harsh your mellow, but we better get used to the idea that this gig, is almost over.

Sure you could have 10, maybe 15 or even 20 years left… but what’s the quality of life of the average, normal, unremarkable 85 year old?

I am 65 years, 4 months, 13 days and about 14 hours old. And I am NOT going to get any younger or any healthier. This is probably the best I can expect to be and to feel; but instead of fooling myself into believing I’m 45 or 50 and that I have all the time in the world… I’m going to bitch and moan and rail against ageing, illness, mental fragility, and the everyday biological breakdown of my body, with every breath I take!

I will live, what’s left of my life, to the fullest and to the best of my mental and physical abilities… but I will not be fooled into believing I can somehow prevent or stop the inevitable.

Only in truly accepting that inevitable passage, under death’s dark and silent gate, can we really begin to LIVE.

…so hell no, I will not go gentle into that good night

Fuck that.

Do not go gentle into that good night ~ Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.