A Lady Asked me How My Older Daughter is Doing; not Tess, Melissa my Wife.

by Rob Krabbe, © 2012

When did I become a post-mid?

Past middle age?   Well, according to the stats, there is a slim chance I’m not there yet, but who am I kidding, I’d have to live to be 104.  Middle age, and then the season just past it, I am indeed a “post-mid.”  That means, well I don’t know really.  See, candidly, I still laugh at body humor, and yet not anymore to the point of tears running down my fa—ok that’s not true, I laugh till I cry at really stupid things, and there’s nothing funnier to me than a good unexpected fart, and I hate to admit it, but if in the midst of any serious conversation you just blurt out the word “scrotum,” for no reason, I will lose it completely, while everyone else is offended.  If that ever happened at church, I would have a heart attack from laughing.  Other than that, I am more mature . . .

Maybe here is where the “mid” comes in; it’s no longer funny to me when someone is mean spirited.  When jokes come at the expense of other’s feelings, etc.  I don’t like seeing someone victimized at all, even in the movies, well maybe even especially in a movie.  I love America’s Funniest Home Videos, but when it really looks like someone really gets hurt and while everyone else is laughing, I cringe first for a moment, before I begin laughing.  See?  More mature.  I find secret satisfaction, that when I was growing up my parents would yell, “turn that crap down, that music is garbage,” and now when I yell to my children (they’re mostly grown) to turn down the stereo, it’s because they are blasting that same “garbage” turned classic rock music, the same bands I loved and still love.  Why?  First because, and here’s part of the satisfaction, the music wasn’t garbage, or people still love Garbage maybe, but that’s because it too is already a classic rock band, and more because my son, who does enjoy a little modern rock, or “dubstep” or some other music I don’t know about that was invented last Thursday, says “The only rock that’s good enough to last is classic rock.”  Amen halleluiah, got the witness, and he wears the T shirt.

So age is a mental state.  I agree, except that my knees I am told, need replacing, a wonderful consequence of my weight for thirty five of my fifty years, while I boldly stated my heart was great, cholesterol fantastic, that I had genes that would have me wearing triple-house size pants until I was in my nineties. Fact is I forgot to consult my knees that apparently were saying “geez really?” as they groaned under my hulking body all these years.  So I have that to look forward to. Other than feeling old because my knees, or lack of them, I feel pretty good.  I have never felt older than 13 in my head, well I guess, truthfully, until around 35, then I started to feel like 24 for a few years, and I felt 72 for six months when I was sick, and had sinus surgery, but mostly I guess now I feel about 28 in my head.  My 51 year old body sometimes gets my attention, but I generally ignore those pangs, and I take “longer to heal” when I’m stupid.

So here is the rub, I love my age.  Post-mid, old, past it, whatever. I love my children, and I also love seeing them make lives for themselves. I love seeing what great adults they have become.  They are people I respect. I love my new grandchild, love to play with her and I really love that my daughter, who had the stinkiest poo on the planet when she was a baby (I’m sure she doesn’t mind my sharing that), now has to change diapers, and I don’t!  Plus there are less witnesses to me and my wife’s going to bed early, actually because we’re tired (to be fair we have to get up at 5:30 in the unGodly morning).

The crux of it though; if you were a genie, and offered to make me any age I wanted to be, well I would not change my age, I might ask to make my knees 30 years younger and I’d finish the diet.  My third wish may be a shallow one for great gobs of money, but I always tell God if I won the lottery I would tithe double!  I love who I am and what age I am and that my wife at her age is more beautiful to me than when she was young and hot (oops I didn’t mean she isn’t hot now), now she’s middle aged like me although no one believes that. Why is love better?  I don’t have any wise truths for that one, but in my heart of hearts I believe it is because we’ve lived life together for 31 years, and worked like hell to make it work, and still do.

I wouldn’t trade my marriage for anything.  And I wouldn’t trade my age either.  I get to play music as loud as I want, because it’s my house, and I can eat anything I want, and yet I choose to be losing weight now (100 pounds so far in two years) because some day I will go ahead and get those new knees, and they say they will last longer than a year or two if I lose the extra weight.  I get to wear what I want and not wear what I don’t want, and I get to hold the TV remote, the DVD remote, the Cable remote, the Roku and DRV remotes, even when I have no clue what they do, so I generally watch the same early news and reruns of the same shows, but boy, if I ever wanted to I could watch like a bazillion channels and play HD games, where I could skateboard digitally, which would be much smarter than taking my fifty year old flesh out on the unforgiving concrete.  Mostly though . . . uh oh . . . here is where older comes . . . I am happy with reruns of I love Lucy, and Andy Griffith (bless his soul in heaven now) and I do like that “Big Bang Theory,” the sit com, not the science.

Post-mid is great.  Lots of life left, Deo Valente (God willing), and not near retirement, adventure to come, but I’m old enough that young people call me sir, and I almost always get mistaken for the senior discount tickets at the theater because my hair is mostly grey, and it feels good to say I don’t qualify.

Ok, most of that is meaningless, as the teacher says, but here is the main reason I love being post-mid: my wife has been “back in school,” getting her MDiv, and all her new college buddies freak out when they find out she is old enough to be married to me. Multiple times people have asked me how my other daughter was doing, the one that goes to Erskine (my wife, and she graduated).  I love that.  Doesn’t bother me at all that I look super old, and she looks super young, because I know they walk away after learning that we are married . . . amazed I could land such a young and hot wife!

Post-mid?

You betcha.

Cheers!