“You look too young to be a doctor,” the post office lady behind the counter says and smiles. I honestly couldn’t say the same about her.

I’m surprised. At 37, I don’t hear that as often as I used to. I just smile back.

My face certainly doesn’t look as young as it did ten years ago. It’s a little more ragged to me. I can make out a few wrinkles in my forehead that were never there before. A lot of those lines are from smiling at the kids or raising my eyebrows questioningly. My little girl tends to raise her eyebrows as a greeting whenever she sees me now.

I’m not going all middle-aged metrosexual though. Skin creams are for girls – literally. How am I supposed to look all wise and foreboding as I get older with a baby face anyways?

I can count one grey hair on my left sideburn and two grays on my right. I’m ready for the salt and pepper streaks. I think it’ll look good actually.

Still….

Sometimes it does make you pause … and realize that nothing else pauses with you. Time marches on. The kids are quick little people now, not just chubby babies. The muscles take a little longer to recover. The body likes to retain more gravitas, if you will. You find yourself writing things your 8th grade history teacher would say, like “if you will.” Losing weight is an uphill battle – again, literally – I have to set the treadmill on incline while I’m trying to get the achievements in Dead Or Alive 4 now. Your endurance can’t be taken for granted anymore – sparring with one of those conditioned 20-year olds in jiu-jitsu is going to hurt you more than it will them, even if you win.

I refuse to believe my hand-eye coordination has declined perceptibly. Although I do have to pull out the stops (circle strafing, grenades, unplugging controllers) when I’m playing Halo death matches with my little boy now, but he knows the maps better than I do. My vision has declined a little, sure. The opthy tech who measured me for my glasses said I was developing early cataracts. Oh come on, like I’m going to believe someone who took on-the-job training to turn diopters. I was born at night, but not last night baby.

I shouldn’t complain. I’m sure there are 50-year olds scoffing at me the way I scoff at 20-somethings complaining that they’re “old” now. In your twenties, you’re still learning who you are and where you fit. In your thirties, you’ve got a pretty good idea of who you are and who you are not going to be. In your forties, you’re on a mission, whatever mission, just something you realize you have to start or finish now or never. The fifties and beyond, I can’t really say.

Good things about getting older: perspective and experience. You can see patterns in life, in generations, in people, in yourself. Experience can help you contain, avoid, or predict outcomes sometimes. It certainly helps you survive versus 20-year old wrestlers on the mat. From the male side, with age also comes less testosterone. Not wanting to put your wood in every hole you see without thinking about the splinters first is a good thing. Not wanting to get in a fight whenever you feel uncomfortable in a bar or club is good for your nasal cartilage too. Some things are more important. You just hope you remember them again when the time comes.

The post lady hands me my letter, asks me to sign and print my name there. Address there.

“After that we’ll need some urine and blood tests,” she actually says.

I never get doctor jokes in public because I just don’t advertise what I am in any way. Even today, my hair is sticking up and I’m in my sweats. The mail clerk must have seen the M.D. on the letter I was picking up.

I smile back. I don’t mind the joke at all.

I open the certified letter in my car. It says I’ve been terminated from the hospital because I didn’t pay my dues. Postmarked a month ago, notified yesterday.

I paid them last week, with the 20% late charge, in person ($480 in fact for the “privilege” of taking care of their patients).   The letter is their snafu. 

As you get older, you realize some things don’t change. Systems and people will always screw up. Nobody knows anything. Even people like me who think they know what it means to get older.

One thing you know for sure though, is how much you love the people in your life.

…………………………………………..

Congrats on the publisher news, Cyn!