5 minute read
A slightly below-average life
by Paul Kandarian
We’ve all seen these ridiculous memes on Facebook that screw around with age and aging.
Like if you add 70 years to my birthday it’s 2023, but if you subtract 70 it’s 1883. They do that do make you feel older. But truthfully, my body feels like it was born in 1883 anyway and, as the old cowboy saying goes, now looks like I been rode hard and hung out to dry wet.
I turn 70 on October 13. I distinctly remember when my grandparents turned 70, and then my parents and I thought “Holy crap! 70! I’ll never be 70!” not meaning I’d die, (although I treated too much of my youth like a discarded coke straw at Studio 54), but that I felt it impossible that anyone as young as I was could turn 70. It was unthinkable, unimaginable, unfathomable.
I’d be 22 for ever and ever – lithe, young, supple, unbreakable, immortal –I’d convinced myself. And learned many years later that the biggest lies you’ll ever hear are the ones you tell yourself.
But hey, 70 years on a planet spinning at 1,000 mph that we’ve assumed would give us all the inexhaustible resources we’d ever need (whoops!), well, that’s not a bad stretch. I’m in no way ready to say 70 is enough. I’d love 70 more. But only if I’m not reduced to a shriveled lump of brokendown body and soul drooling and mumbling and wondering what the hell is taking the Grim Reaper so long to show up.
I remember when people would be amazed at humans living to 70. Now 80 is pretty common; my folks died in their late 80s. And 90 isn’t as rare as it used to be, nor really is 100. And this is despite living in a country with the world’s highest gun fatality rate, an obesity epidemic that’s not going anywhere fast, a crippling death rate from drugs, and a raging pandemic every so often.
In fact, our life expectancy is now 76.4 – the lowest it’s been in almost 20 years. Which, and I’m no math genius, isn’t terribly far from, say – gulp – 70.
I’m a full-time actor these days and on virtually every set I’m the oldest guy there, which is a double-edged sword. The downside being I can’t do the physical stuff I used to, like getting up off the floor with fluid grace. But the upside is all those young people I find myself working with not only look up to me like a wizenedyet-wise village elder full of life experience and sage advice, but also are more than willing to help me get up off the floor. Bless their young wonderful hearts. I always thank them and tell them, “Don’t get old, kid,” meaning physically but adding about state of mind, “Never grow up, there’s no future in it.”
I tend to grouse about getting older, but honestly it’s not that bad – internally anyway.
Everything in there seems to be working okay. It’s the wheels on the bus that are falling off: bum knees, shoulders, blah blah blah. Inside is what counts because that’s where life lives, happily 20-something forever.
I’d rather not be 70, but I’d also rather not be dead so I’ll take it and be happy to have made seven decades, keeping a wary eye on 76.4, I guess, but really not worrying about it. On those aforementioned movie sets full of young folks, I look in admiration and more than a little bit of envy at all those years they got ahead of them, talking about stuff they might do in the next 10, 20, 30 or so. I just smile and remember when I had that many ahead of me, then getting wistful as I realize that hopeful span of years could now be realistically and painfully reduced to single digits.
The one thing above all I want a lot more years is Mikey, my grandson, now 8+ years old and the absolute center of my universe. We adore each other and always will, although I’m preparing for that run of years when it’s not cool for a young person to hang with their Grandpa. I know that’s coming. It happens to us all and I honestly regret not listening more intently to the amazing stories my grandfathers used to tell.
But I was a young man and wore a younger man’s demeanor and couldn’t be bothered by the ramblings of old men. Now I am an old man and love bothering my little man with my ramblings – which he still loves and that’s good enough for me.
One thing old timers have is dispensable wisdom, and if there was one thing I’d tell any young person – but my grandson most of all – regarding the enviable years ahead, it would be: do what I could not do. But do it better than I could have ever imagined. Pretty wise for an old fart, eh?
Now I gotta go live the hell outta at least the next 6.4 years. Anything after that is gravy.