There are words that a man hears that lets him know he has reached another stage in his life. They divide a man’s life as surely as a ruler is divided into equal parts. Though childhood is a part of anyone’s life, it is not really begun by a statement from someone. It’s reinforced, though, by people saying things like, “Hey, kid, Come over here!” or the one that starts, “When you grow up…” You can insert your own finish to that phrase. Childhood will be an indefinite time in one’s life, as each individual will define their own status as a child. “You’re acting like a child” and “That was a juvenile thing to do” may occur at any time in your life. And men, to many women in your life, you will always suffer from some form of Peter Pan-ism, whether it’s that red sports car or spending Sunday with your pals watching football instead of antiquing in the country.
But you can pretty much define that you have reached adulthood when a member of the club you thought you were still a member of says, “Thanks, Mister” or you are introduced to someone younger than you as “Mr. Smith” or whatever your last name is. My thought is that you should now consider yourself an adult and will be looked upon strangely when you try to get in to the under-21 club.
The second road sign in life’s relentless journey is when you’re at some trendy nightspot enjoying the evening. Just doing the things you might have been doing for the last couple of decades, like having a drink, enjoying the music and the electricity that only a really good crowd can generate. As your eyes wander the room, watching the social world interact in front of you, your eyes land on a particularly beguiling segment of that observed society. As you are admiring the view, your eyes meet and she gives a shy smile and excuses herself from her group and begins to head in your direction. Your reaction mechanism goes into operation. You smooth your hair (or think you do), suck in that gut a little (I’ve got to start going to the gym, again) and smile that capped smile of yours. “Excuse me”, she starts, “but can you tell me what time it is (ready?), SIR ?"
The dreaded word has been spoken to you. There goes the pretense of your present. Forget about the gym, she just called you a word you used to only utter to your elders. As they say, one door opens; another one closes. In your case my friend, hello middle age goodbye young adult hood. You know you’re cooked. Young women no longer consider you a mating possibility, unless you have starred in a few motion pictures or can pay the stars of motion pictures. But in that case, you are not the attraction of who you are as what you can do. Nah, the only thing you have to look forward to is the kid with acne who after asking you what show you want to see, gives you the “over 50” discount on your tickets.
Why I write these signposts for you, dear reader is because I just received the next to last jolt in the road of life. Over the weekend, I took one of those little steps for a man that lead to big time aches. I stepped in a small indentation in the road, my knee buckled and two days later it had swollen up like a grapefruit had been stuffed down my leg to the knee joint. Usually in these cases (it’s happened before) I use the “Twin I” cure, ice and ibuprofen. After a couple days of a walk that could make the “Minister of Silly Walks” bit in a Python skit, some moans and groans and some awkward positions in the bathroom, things get back to normal. I will admit here that the recovery periods have been slowly been getting longer and longer. In this case, the normal cure wasn’t working and, indeed, was getting worse. Much to the relief of the Viking Princess, I finally relented and entered the Swedish Socialized Medical Treatment again.
For those of you who feel that having a medical system where people are all equal in getting medical attention is a bad thing, yes, it is crowded. Yes, you do have to wait your turn and that turn is defined by how close to death you are, how your bleeding will affect housekeeping and how contagious you are to the rest of society. Not necessarily in that order. But you will be taken care of by good health technicians who are in this profession because they can help people. And it is heartening to see that the old are treated with care and respect. There is humanness to this system that you don’t find in the states and you don’t wait any longer than you would at County General, USA.
Anyway, back to the knee. After consultation and x-rays, I was wheeled into a treatment room where Christian, my attending doctor told me that there were no breaks and said he could see from the x-rays that there had been previous trauma. And there has developed, because of that trauma, osteo-arthritis. But I was not to worry, as I need to continue my activity, as that actually was good for the containment of the arthritis. We drained the swelling and wrapped me up and that he said the following phrase. Drum roll, please! “You are not to worry,” Dr. Inngul intoned. “This is quite common when the parts of the body…(Cymbals ready?)…Start to get OLD.” (Crash! Boom! Bang!) Well, I have to admit; it wasn’t that traumatic, though I must have winced, as the Doc was quick to explain that he didn’t know how else to explain it in English. It was OK, I told him. I joked that he really knew how to hurt a guy.
Yet, there was a feeling that passed between us that we both knew, even though we had just met that day. It was something recognizable, almost DNA-like that something was said that was not a happy event. There was the shudder of recognition where one man realizes that he has become something the other guy knows he is going to be. A little closer to the edge of no return than you want to be. Like road signs on the highway, you might not like to see them but you know what they mean.
No comments:
Post a Comment