In a little over a week, I will be 70. The mind, as they say, boggles. How did this happen?
All in all, though, I have little to complain about. Physically, I seem to be in fairly good condition, I just got my COVID and flu shots, the minor inconveniences that dance around me like gnats are largely insignificant and can be ignored.
I have a lot on my plate, though, and I have noticed a marked decrease in…
I don’t know if it’s energy or just give-a-damns. There are things I think it would be a good idea to do and then I just sort of fade when it comes time. I have less time during the day when I feel like a ninja warrior able to defeat all enemies. (I haven’t done any martial arts exercises in I don’t remember,) Our local SF convention is this weekend and I have a full roster of panels and such. I’m looking forward to it, as much as I look forward to anything.
I’ve passed up some shows I wouldn’t mind seeing. Partly this is a money thing. I still cannot get my head around the price of tickets these days. But let’s not go down that path, which leads to a desperate nostalgia and does little good. At the end of the month we’re going to see a farewell tour (Renaissance) that I expect will be excellent though melancholy. All my musical heroes are aging out or dying. Kind of like the writers and actors I grew up with.
And now I have to acknowledge that perhaps for someone, somewhere, I count as one of those aging relics.
Trust me, I have every intention of seeing the Tricentennial. (I doubt I’ll make it, but everyone needs a goal.) It does, in a way it never did before, depend on whether civilization survives. We are on the cusp of that wonderous age we all anticipated from the pages of whatever SF magazine we were reading at the time. As William Gibson said, the future is here, it’s just unequally distributed.
But I for the first time actually have before me a handful of projects I could consider my last. Again, it’ll take time to do them, but I sort of know what I’m going to be working on for the next five or ten years. In one way, that’s a bit unnerving, but mostly it’s reassuring that I have that much to do.
There’s a game some people (maybe most) play, if you died tomorrow would you be satisfied. I don’t quite understand satisfaction that way. It involves being “finished” in ways that I can’t figure into my own desires, but I get the gist. Maybe, I have to say. More so than not. The thing is, I still can’t quite accept that I’m no longer the new kid on the scene. I don’t know what has to happen to make that sense of myself go away. Not sure if I want it to. I suppose that means I’ll just keep working until.
Until whatever.
Anyway, the best part of the last seven decades has been the people I’ve met and the friends I’ve made. Fine folks. And they put up with me. I guess I still have them fooled.
So, unless something strikes my fancy between now and then, I’ll see you all on the other side of….damn….70.
GREAT post. Thank you. I have … been contemplating some similar thoughts and wondering about my choices going forward.
The “have before me a handful of projects I could consider my last” is a flashing check light on my mental instrument panel frequently these days. As I prepare to tackle something new, but using a skill I have honed from past conquests and achievements, I think, “will this be the last time I do this?” Or on a smaller scale, with this be the last time I read, or hear, or view an old favorite. And my mental response is, “Then I better make it my best.”
My issue, though? I recently realized an acute problem: the ‘new drivers’ don’t see the issues I am discussing as important. Suddenly, for the first time, not only am I not in the fast lane, but I knew had been shunted to a siding without my knowledge or consent . That sense of movement that I still felt? It was simply the rest of the world passing by me.
And I realize everyone that I knew that I considered “old” when I was young? THAT was EXACTLY the point they tried to make me understand as I ignored their advice and viewpoint.
Suddenly, I realized I really was old – and deserved the stinging feeling I was experiencing.
My solution? The equivalent of a Senior’s Golf Tour. I do things for those who still see those issues as issues, and tackle them anyway. Cue up “Space Cowboys,” and remember that there is better living through chemistry.
Thanks for sharing. I appreciate it.
And happy birthday, Mark. You have made the years better with your writings and your insights.