52 again

"Self-Realization is rarely good news." - Unknown.

April 25, 2018
Chris Reeves
letobook@yahoo.com

When did I know it was over?

A week ago.

Well, Sunday. Which was 3 days. But it happened last week.

As such things seem to occur, in the most inauspicious of places and times. Kneeling by the fridge.  She had just asked if there was any of that "nice chicken" left. - after she came back from some time away with a friend. She'd been looking for a few minutes.
"Yup..." I offered, kneeling, and started to root in the back of the bottom shelf.
Then: "Right here!" as I offered up the package to her. "I knew it was there cause I gave some to Strider with his supper this week."
"This is really good chicken. Don't waste this on the dog."
I waited a moment and debated but decided I had to ask; "Waste?"
"You don't think there's a difference between a human and a dog?" She offered.
Again, I waited. My son within earshot and listening. "Yes. I like dogs better than most humans." I decided to say. And left the kitchen.

It shook me. I was actually dumbstruck.

It was the kind of thing that, if we were dating, would put about 20 checks in the "dump" column for me. For the first time I realized that I didn't recognize her.


One of the things I've hated about the past year is how cliché everything is. Every rotten story. Every undeveloped character. I'm middle aged. The wife is leaving me. I lost the good-paying job and the expense account. My dog died. I looked at a picture of my dad to long until I wondered if I would recognize him if he walked past me in the street. It was kind of scary. Then I realized, "Cliché" is just another term for "Average".

Imagine taking someone like Roger Waters, or Bowie, or Freddie Mercury. Or anyone who inspires. Give them all the potential to change the world the way they do. Give them all the skills and abilities they need then remove from them the ability for their direct exercise.

It's been a weird year. I feel.... Old. Or maybe I just have started to mature mentally and this is growing pains from leaving elements of youth behind. I have been surprised with my self image. Low as it is, I never thought of myself as an adult. Silly example, when R at work berates me (however rare) for some slight, I was a 14 year old child. I had no rights, no opinions, I was just chagrined and shy and wanted it to stop so I could get past it. What would my dad have done?

My dad was an old man. My dad was ancient. His hands were knarled by arthritis. He had "train-tracks" from a heart operation. He couldn't get out of a chair without grunting or sit in a chair without flumping into it.   I don't think he ever wore anything other than a work uniform or a short-sleeved plaid collared shirt. I couldn't say if I ever saw him in a t-shirt, much less wearing childish slogans and symbols usually long cast aside.  He had wrinkles and I remember wondering what it felt like to feel that old.  My parents were both ancient together for a time and they talked about famous people dying that no one else in the world had ever heard of. Born April 11 1928, died Dec 9 1988.



I'm older than my dad now.  How old am I?

I wasn't prepared for the strength of the blow dealt to me the morning I realized I now lacked a father figure.

Not that the blow itself was a particularly recent one, my father having passed some 30 years previous. But that on this epiphany I realized that I had reached the age that my father had reached when he died. 

In no memory I have of my father, can he be older than I am right now.

I've never really considered myself scarred or haunted by anything. A casual insult from an older dick in some tennis courts in grade school many years ago tied me to the epithet "Chunky" for the longest time. I had a dream that some red drapes from my old bedroom were sneaking up behind to bite my mom but I couldn't warn her. They turned to me in my panic and sighed: "I want to talk to her!"


I inadvertently let my son watch the original made-for-tv-movie "It" and he is still afraid of clowns and of Pennywise incarnations both old and new.

When I was a kid I saw a re-run of the old black and white 1959 Twilight Zone episode called "Time Enough At Last". Mild enough story. Still haunts me to this day and has become a source of some anxiety for me that I can't read a book or a paper without glasses now.

I believe I finally understand the term "mid-life crisis" beyond the humor and the stereotypes. I find myself thinking about my dad a lot. I don't recall following any particular credo that he instilled in me. More of a feeling of "How would my dad act in response to this particular situation?"


I watched the movie "No Country for Old Men" with my son and got chills when I heard Tommy-Lee Jones, talking about his departed father, say; "I'm older than he was by now by 20 years"