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What’s So Funny About Getting Older?

Judy Causey Love

Donuts on Cake

Well, first off, I didn’t think it would happen so fast. One day I was 39 and I was traveling, working, laughing, going to parties, playing games, and the next I was seeing visions of the Milky Way when I leaned over too long while tying my shoes.

I expected older age to mean staying up as late as you like and hopefully eating whatever you wanted. The truth is I can’t make it much past Vanna and the Wheel because I want to lie down to read which leads quickly to sleep. Also because of specific health issues, I have a specific diet now that doesn’t include a lot of stuff I was planning to enjoy until death.

I was totally unprepared for experiencing the fact that getting both of my legs in my underwear correctly is an Olympic event.

First you forget their names, then you forget their faces, then you forget to zip up your pants, then you forget to put pants on at all. Such is the life of an aging adult.

Becoming older slaps people in the face a lot. We have to worry about our diet. Oddly enough, I can no longer have leafy green vegetables but certain salads are okay. I am not a big fan of salads but someone told me the other day that the more colorful a salad is, the more nutritious it is, so I took off the croutons and poured on the M & M’s. I like salads a lot better now.

Remember the saying, “It’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature”? Well, somebody sure did and they need to stop. She’s real cranky and I can tell because everything has been turned upside down and the weather is out of control. In her current mental state, there are hurricanes as far north as New Jersey and tornadoes in Chicago. The water recently in Key West was over 100 degrees!

I know this is happening because Mother Nature, like many other older people, has begun to prefer very warm climates and it seems the entire Earth is beginning to boil.

George Burns commented on aging by saying, “By the time you’re 80, you’ve learned all you need to know. Now the problem is you have to remember it”.

I may get older but this joke never will. An elderly lady was pulled over by a police officer who asked her if she was carrying any weapons in her car. She launched into a very lengthy description of about 12 various guns she was carrying. When the officer, now in shock, asked her what in the world was she afraid of, she casually responded, “Not a darn thing.”

The brilliant painter, Pierre Renoir, once said it was only after he had grown old and lost all of his teeth was he rich enough to afford steak.

That’s what aging does to us. When we’re young, we imagine all of the things we want to do, or have or where we want to go. But by the time we are old enough to realize these dreams, we’d rather watch old movies and go to bed at a far too respectable hour.

And since when do young, energetic people like me get cataracts and arthritis? And what’s this about all of the rock stars dying? Why, wasn’t it just a couple of years ago they were biting the heads off birds and throwing chairs out of hotel windows. And by the way, when did Paul McCartney get gray and wrinkled?

I have heard several people quote the unknown person who said, “If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. “ I haven’t ever said that, however. I never thought I’d get older. I don’t think any of us did.

There is an alarming increase in the amount of things I know absolutely nothing about. It seems like yesterday I could give the question to almost all of the answers on Jeopardy. Today, I can’t work the crossword on the back page of People Magazine.

But since I have no answer to why we must age when we are all still so young, I’ve decided to just keep going as long as I can and tell anyone that asks “Old age is fifteen years older than I am.” (Thank you Oliver Wendell Holmes)

After all is said and done I think Mark Twain had the best comment regarding getting older. He said, “Age is about mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”

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