If it’s okay with you, I’d like to gripe for a few minutes about being middle-aged. Certainly, I am thankful I have lived this long, and it would be just fine with me to keep driving until I hit the old-aged mile marker. Nevertheless, there are some things about this stretch of road that are starting to bug me.
Let’s start with the most obvious … I’ve decided that forty-something bodies are no place for the timid to dwell. I feel like the storied little Dutch boy trying to plug holes in the dike with his stubby fingers. Just as soon as I get one hole plugged, a leak springs up somewhere else. Every day, I give my carcass a good talking to, explaining that, Lord willing, I may have to live another 40 years in this “earth suit” and it’s gotta do a better job of holding up.
One friend told me how she copes with the onslaught of heretofore unknown physical afflictions that come with middle age. She says she thinks of her body as a car. When a car gets some mileage on it, stuff begins to wear out and break down. Sometimes, a lot of things all at the same time. So, you just get those things fixed one by one and pretty soon, you’re good to go for another long spell of happy driving.
I’m sure looking forward to the happy driving part, but right now I’m a bit weary of being hoisted “up on the rack,” having my parts fixed, and making “mechanics” all over town rich. But alas, such seems to be the nature of the beast called middle age.
Know what else I’m tired of? TV news. Every winter now for forty-some years, I’ve heard the TV news guys tell me how to keep my pipes from freezing. Every summer, when the temperatures climb beyond tolerable, they tell me I need to check on my pets and old neighbors. Every time there’s a torrential rain, they remind me not to drive across flooded roadways. It’s all good advice, but it always leaves me thinking, “WHO doesn’t know this stuff already?”
And while I’m on a roll, here’s another kicker about middle age: By the time you hit 50, you’ve probably lived long enough to have gotten burned by a number of people. Throughout my life, I have been blessed and cursed with much naiveté and simple trust. I have seen folks who needed help and I have galloped into their lives on my white horse, sure that I could “fix” them in 30 minutes (since that’s how long it always takes on TV). I was going to be the great motivator, the great friend, the great teacher, the great inspiration to help those who had been dealt a tough hand in life.
Know what I learned? Hurting people hurt people. And lots of folks simply don’t want my help. Sometimes that makes my heart tired and I feel like Don Quixote fighting windmills. Has it made me stop caring? No. Jesus cared all the way to the cross. But my middle-aged heart isn’t as simply naive as it used to be, and I kind of hate that.
Well, as the Borg say on Star Trek, “Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated.” And I have been … right into the middle ages of my life. Why fight it? My body is dropping optional organs like trees lose leaves in the fall; my heart has been bruised a bit in this journey, but, by golly, I know how to keep my pipes from freezing, my pets safe in the summer and how not to drive in floods.
And perhaps I’ve learned one more thing, as well: “A gray head is a crown of glory; it is found in the way of righteousness.” – Proverbs 16:31.
Or maybe this quote I ran across says the same thing in another way: “The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.”
So, my middle-aged brothers and sisters, let’s play on.