Getting Old

I had my twice-yearly dental exam/teeth cleaning the other day. No cavities, teeth OK except....

"On your back teeth, David, the gums are receding. The teeth are still in place but at some point I may send you to a gum specialist for a procedure.....it's an age thing. We're getting old..."

And he fixed me with a sad look. We are, I believe, pretty close in age.

For the most part, the cosmetic signs of aging don't bother me that much. My hairline is higher than it was in college, but it's been thinning at a snail's pace since I was 16 and I'm not bald yet. It wouldn't bother me, I'd just shave it off---I think that's a cool look. There's a good deal of gray mixed in with the black, but a lot of women dig the salt-and-pepper look, too. Gives me a little gravitas. No sagging skin yet and my physique is better than it was ten years ago.

What does disturb me is the ways in which my body betrays me. Once a year or so, I'll throw my back out lifting weights. Two years ago, it was a hernia which required surgery---thin stomach walls run in my family. Takes longer for my muscles and joints to heal. I have to be more careful about what I eat---oh, I still dig a good burger, Italian beef and whatnot but I have to eat more carefully around those foods. It's easier to gain weight than it used to be. If a pizza is dinner, lunch is a homemade salad with chopped veggies.

I raised the point with Drinking Buddy the other day that the men in our fathers' generation never went to the gym. They were too busy supporting their families and doing home-improvement work to be worried about their beer bellies. And I suspect they view us as slightly narcissistic, those of us who frequent salons instead of the neighborhood barber shop and fret about unsightly hair on our bodies.

I just got back from Christmas with my family and I was amazed at how much my dad can eat. He's a lover of buffet food he wolfs it down as if he's afraid of getting the weaker end of the bargain with the restaurant. He's overweight in the way that men in the 65-70 age group who live in Iowa are overweight, but he's not obese. And I never see him so happy as when he's enjoying a good meal.

I just hope mom's watching his cholesterol for him.

Well, I'm of a different generation. I'm also an uban-dweller. I do what I can to manage my descent into middle age---run, lift weights, watch my food intake and try to remain open to new experiences. I think that you really start to grow old when you close your eyes and ears to the new.

And I have every intention of running the 2008 Chicago Marathon.....