Remember those weird old folks we used to laugh at?
We're them.
I no longer even stop in the candy aisle at the supermarket, but now spend enough time and money in the Health and Beauty aisle to have a sublet.
Youth is divided into believing everyone is invincible except your grandparents and then accepting that your parents' generation may be weakening.
Middle-age is knowing it can happen to you. Like John Gorka says "people my age have started looking gross."
My view is skewed by my own illness last year. It's the ultimate conceit to be surprised when a body you've ignored and abused rebels against you. You can stomp your feet and insist that you've always been able to do things a certain way and will continue to do so, thank you. But if your body says no, the argument pretty much ends right there. Baby boomers aren't used to losing. The day the doctors said "it's fixed" was the best in my life to date.
In the past week I've learned two friends are on chemo and the shock value is gone. This is the course of the grown up world. Being chemically enhanced is no longer a recreational choice.
I met one of these friends for lunch yesterday and was greeted with his trademark back-snapping bear hug. We laughed a lot and talked some too. He talked about his new business (following his recent retirement from his third career) and how his grandchildren now put him in "time out." He reminded me gently that he isn't sick, he simply has a disease.
I got another signature hug as we left the restaurant. Watching him walk away, I saw in him that middle age is indeed beautiful. I don't know of anyone happier or more secure in themselves, their family and their place in the world.
Young folks don't know what they're missing.


Copyright 2004 Judi Griggs