Birthday Boy

The inner child is not happy

No, I am not happy to be turning seventy years old. It hasn't been a bad seventy years, but there were a few down times. Cancer at the age of thirty eight. That wasn't much fun. Chemo is very rough on the body and the aftermath lasts forever. I got fired from a couple of jobs, once for saying 'fuck' in front of a customer. If I'd known I was going to be fired I would have said so much more. Yet mostly these seventy years have been a lot of fun. So, why is it that this birthday bothers me so much? Time, the realization that there is not that much time compared to how much time has passed. Also, the fact that my body is not as resilient as it once was. I can't run. I can't see. I can't hear very well. If I have to get down onto my knees for some reason, a crane needs to be called in to help restore me to my feet. I'm very happy to have made so many friends, but as the years pile up they keep dropping like flies in a Raid commercial. And then there is my perception of what a seventy year old man looks like. When I was a kid my grandparents were in their seventies. In fact it seemed like they were seventy years old for at least twenty years and they looked old. Grandpa never looked young to me. He was always the same damn age. Seriously, he looked just about the same at one hundred years old as he did at the age of seventy. Ah, but there is the positive part about Grandpa. He drank, he smoked cigars, he chewed tobacco, and lived for over one hundred years. I just don't know if I can keep up with him. 

Grandpa at seventy