I’ll admit, I started declaring the inane statement, “It’s hell getting old” many years before I started truly understanding its meaning. Even now, I’m just old enough to understand that I’ve only scratched the surface of understanding what it is to decline. And when you’ve reached such herculean heights of physical and mental prowess as myself, there is such an awfully long way to fall (notice I say nothing of my emotional progress or lack thereof).
One thing I can state definitively is that out of all the aspects of my decline thus far, hands down the most annoying is “old man skin.” Not my teeth and their cracked fillings. Not my fuzzy eyesight that causes me to waive to total strangers just incase I know them. Not my grey beard that leaves me looking like a retired pirate trying to blend in with landlubbers after participating in Disney’s Pirate Protection Program. Not my sensitive ears and inability to distinguish a conversation in a noisy place. Not the fact that I regularly rub my body down with “muscle salve” in the vein hope that my current muscle strains will heal before I sustain new ones.
Nope. The most annoying aspect of aging thus far is definitely old man skin. I don’t even live all that physical of a life, and yet a cursory glance at my hands reveals a half dozen nicks and scrapes. I’ve got a blood blister that I probably sustained from opening a pickle jar. What used to be wiry muscle now feels like Mallomars beneath a flaky skin coating. I get scrapes that insist on bleeding all over the place just from catching my hand on the corner of the cabinet door. Forget about doing actual manual labor. I have to carry tissues around to staunch bleeding more than my dripping nose.
If I happen to smack myself with a hammer or catch myself on the edge of a piece of sheet metal forget about it. It ends up looking like a horror movie if I try to simply work through the injury like I would have ten to twenty years ago. While helping my youngest son with his fort, I smacked myself in the forehead with a board (a comical string of events in and of itself). But the result was enough blood running from my brow to nearly cause my son to pass out. I tried to get him to focus on finishing the project, but it was a no go. And the tools were getting slippery, so I figured it best to clean up before coming back to it.
If I even stare at my razor, I’m gonna start bleeding. It’s no wonder older men suffer from anemia (or at least I assume they do). Forget online miracle cures for erectile dysfunction. If I could snap my fingers in the air (without them bleeding) and magically generate a cure for old man skin, I would pay any amount of money (or at least any amount of pocket change money) for whatever scam promised to rejuvenate my skin back to that of a thirty-five year old.
Then, maybe then, I’d wake up in the morning without finding another blood stain on the pillow case or little specks on the sheets indicating where the skin on my back decided it simply couldn’t retain integrity throughout the night.
I know, I know. It’s all down hill from here. At least that means to get to stop pedaling, right?
At the Desk This Week
My desk is still collecting dust for the most part. I took the family camping this last week. We finally got away to one of two spots in the world were star garnets can be found. Star garnets are a rare, natural occurring dodecahedron that reveal a star glimmer in the middle when polished. Good times. I’m too busy spending time with my family and bleeding all over the place to miss my fiction writing…yet. The time will come when I’ll be pulled back. But it ain’t now.
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