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The new old me

October 17, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By Anthony Carnovale

Can you feel it? See it? I can. My neighbour across the street can, too. People out walking their dogs? Yup. I bet the dogs do, too — I know mine does. It’s that time. Time to say goodbye to warm summer days, and time to hunker down for the long slog that is the winter season.

I like summer, but I’m not mad to see it go. Now that summer has passed, I don’t have to worry about my kids asking to go to the beach (I hate the beach). Soccer season is on hiatus (frees up 4-5 evenings per week). I always look forward to a new school year. No more air conditioners (can’t stand them). No more sweaty days out in the portable with no air-conditioner (I’m a complicated man). Best of all: it’s the time of year when I can rock a hoodie and shorts

I’m also happy to be done with gardening. This year’s vegetable garden was a complete disaster. I must have spent a couple of hundred dollars for what amounted to a side order of salad. Maybe one serving of lettuce. Four or five tomatoes. A few onions no bigger than a nickel. Forget about eggplants. I couldn’t even grow a zucchini. In the end, the rabbits ate more than we did. I won’t dwell on the time, money, or water that went into it. The point is: I tried. I tried, and my kids saw me trying. I think my daughter felt sorry for me. She’d picked the few cherry tomatoes that we grew and brought them into the house. “Here you go, Daddy!” (I felt like less of a dad). And now, the garden sits, like a freshly dug grave in a cemetery; the tomato stakes stand like grave markers.

It’s an apt image for the general mood of most people at this time of year. I haven’t been immune to it, either. The other day, my family watched a turkey vulture devour an entire squirrel on our front lawn (all that was left was the innards and a bushy tail). It fit right in with the withering ghouls and plastic skeletons that decorate our front lawn. All this death, dying and darkness has got me thinking about death, dying and darkness, man (funny that).

Like this:

The other day I looked into the mirror and was shocked. I mean, I knew my eyes were bad, but it had nothing to do with how I saw. It had everything to do with what I saw. I was, like, “I don’t feel as old as I look!” The next day, I had to ask a woman to read the name on the coffee cup at the Starbuck pick-up counter. She pronounced my name better than any barista ever has.

Still, for me, generally speaking, ‘age ain’t nothing but a number’ (RIP Aaliyah). I’ve seen high school students move and talk and function with less verve and spice than some seniors I know.

I’m not young; I’m not old.

Like this:

I can’t remember when I first thought about getting old. Do you? When we’re young, old age only happens to old people. Remember when pop songs felt like forever songs? (Mine was Glass Tiger’s ‘Don’t Forget Me When I’m Gone.” Please don’t ask me to provide context). These days, I don’t even know the titles of most songs I listen to.

Like this:

Or maybe it’s the fact that my students keep calling me out for using words that are outdated. When they do, I just snap back: “Does ‘you fail’ still mean ‘you fail’?

It ain’t easy, man.

Every year I get older; every year my students stay the same age. I’m aging in front of an audience. Even my jokes don’t get the same reaction they used to. I always said when I stopped being funny in the classroom it was time for me to go. Tick. Tock.

Like this:

Isn’t it enough that I can still run faster than my children, and can still rock a pair of sneakers like a 17-year-old sneakerhead (some things are harder to let go than others)? I mean, that still counts for something, right?

In the end, it’s all we do: We’re born to die.

Like this:

I see it (with glasses on) as I watch my children grow up. They take my years, my age and feast on them. The bigger they get, the smaller, quieter I get. They take up more space in the house. They take up more space in my heart.  It isn’t easy, but I give it to them willingly (most days).

Julio Ramon Ribeyro wrote it better than I ever could:

“The tooth that comes in for them is the one that falls out for us; the inch they grow is the one that we shrink; the lights they acquire are the one’s extinguished in us; what they learn, we forget; and the year added for them is the one subtracted for us.”

Getting old isn’t easy. But what else is there for us to do?

Personally, I’m not afraid of getting old. I’m afraid of being afraid of getting old.

Next year I’m going to grow me some cabbage. I’m not old.


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