I remember when I asked my father “when did you realize that you were old?”
He gave me a strange look and said “only when I look in the mirror.”
I will be 72 next week and I really don’t feel older and the only real difference in my life is that I don’t have a “real job” ( well, in reality I guess I never really did ), other people seem to treat me differently… almost as if I’m invisible … and I admit, I seem to forget “little things” more often.
Oh, and I don’t have the same amount of energy I had 25 years ago… surprise! But I don’t like to feel that way.
But the worst thing?
I keep remembering the “good old days.”
Not that that is a bad thing… but it just seems to be a sign of the times.
Almost everyone I know ( friends my age ) says that they wish things were “the way they used to be.”
I think more than anything that the “retreat” and memories of the past is my generation’s way of dealing with the chaos and the divisiveness which grips our country today.
Most of us know that change is inevitable… it always is.
But when change becomes violent and cannot be settled peacefully … like it almost always had in much of the past…
Most of us don’t know how to handle it.
And we retreat.
And we don’t deal with it.
Because we don’t know what to do.
My sister and her husband are more active… they demonstrate for causes they believe in. They talk to their elected officials and they are active in local politics.
They both have strong opinions and are not afraid to tell others what they are.
I admire that and I admit that their attitude and actions don’t mirror mine.
I admit that I am puzzled when I can’t find a neighboring teenager to help me paint my house… or move my piano.
Why the hell wouldn’t kids want to earn a little extra money?
But almost none of them do.
And almost everyone my age wonders why.
And then we wonder to why none of the neighbors seem to get together anymore.
I remember when I was younger… the neighbors always got together for BBQs, and it seems like they were always talking with one another…
Now?
We hardly ever even see our neighbors.
I mean… we maybe wave to each other once every six months… that is how often we even see each other.
When I first moved into this neighborhood in northern Minnesota I told my wife that I suspected that our neighbors were all vampires because we never seemed to see them.
It is still the same way.
They stay inside. They don’t do things with their neighbors… they probably don’t even know them.
And the kids? Yeah, they’re vampires too, but they are probably playing video games or Fortnight.
Yeah, I miss the old days.
And I admit that I don’t have the answers to the problems that our country is facing.
But one thing I do know…
We didn’t have problems trusting each other “back in the old days.”
Now… we have the internet…
And billions of people…all “neighbors”… all faceless.
Maybe I don’t fit in anymore… being old.
But dammit, I still wish we had the old days.
And I still wish that we trusted our neighbors and people we do business with.
Or even our elected officials… or our media… or our law enforcement.
The list goes on and on.
I hope to hell our country finds a solution…
Because we need one. Badly.
Maybe we should take a look at how things were done in the past.
But, then again, maybe that’s just my old age talking.