I was scrolling through Twitter the other night (yes, I’ve gone back on to social media – though in smaller doses) when I came across this tweet about old people and blankets on their laps. Sitting in my favorite spot on the sofa, I looked down at the soft, but not very attractive paisley-print fleece across my lap and then over to my cup of tea and thought, “yep, that about sums it up. I’m officially an old person.” The only things missing were knitting needles or a book of crossword puzzles and a pair of readers perched at the end of my nose.
I’m not sure when this transition to feeling old happened… I suspect it began some time in the last three or four years, and has been hastened by the pandemic. There was a time, not too long ago, when I went out to hear live music two, three, sometimes four nights a week. I had my favorite bars. I went on dates, or out to dinner with friends (mostly dates). I hiked and went to the beach on weekends in the warmer weather. I did stuff at night after work. I did stuff… Now, I can’t imagine leaving the house after I get home and feed the dog. The thought of going somewhere on a Tuesday night is a hard no. I have errands I could or should run, but I don’t even want to walk the dog, let alone go to a store or go out for a drink. I didn’t live a wild or fast life – far from it… but I wasn’t a hermit with a blanket over his head and shoulders babushka style.
The homebody thing is only one way in which I feel these last few years have aged me. I used to be more fit (less jiggly), feel stronger, more alert, and less fatigued. I never relished staying in bed or looked forward to going to bed early – and now I sometimes do. I also feel like I used to be more spontaneous. I once booked a cabin in the back woods of Virginia to meet up, hang out, explore, and hike with a complete stranger – a woman I had met in line at a tourist attraction outside Chattanooga on a spontaneous road trip. We barely knew each other, yet had enough trust to believe neither of us were ax murderers. Now, I struggle to make adequate plans to hop in the car for a weekend in Philly or Pittsburgh or Baltimore. I once went out with a woman who said she couldn’t date me because I wasn’t edgy enough. I disagreed then… and now I’m sipping warm lemon water and honey by reading lamp. How’s that for edgy?
I know some of this is because of the pandemic. It’s been a long and uneven shut down – few things have come back to what they were before. When we were all forced inside, I think we got a little used to being inside – either that or the world got more chaotic and inside is where we had some control. Time, for many of us, has gotten slippery…. months, days, weeks, weekends have blurred a bit. I still go out to a bar once a week or so, but now, I feel a little guilty doing it. I think about how I don’t know any of these people or what they’ve been exposed to. That’s taken some of the fun out of it. I also live in an area that has a lot less gong on (at least for middle-aged, kidless, single adults). Perhaps I’d be more outgoing if there were things going on out there. I know that I have a more demanding job and that I have taken on the responsibility of the dog – both of which make me tired and limit my time. Taking time off from work is harder to do, and going anywhere involves extra planning for the care of the dog. Those wouldn’t have been deterrents in the past.
Nevertheless, the cumulative effect is that I feel older and/or slower. I sometimes think about my pre-pandemic life, and especially my pre-Memphis life and wonder how I had the time or energy to do half of what I did. It looks pretty foreign to me. Instead of being this vibrant, fun, semi-active person that I think I used to be, I’m more content to sit in dour repose (no doubt with a furrowed brow) in my spot on the sofa with a blanket over my legs and the dog snoring next to me. And as vain as it sounds, in these moments, I start to wonder if I feel this on the inside – like I’ve aged five years in the last two – how long before it shows on the outside. There goes old man Uhler yelling at the kids again, using words like whippersnapper and hooligan.
Post script:
Shortly after I finished writing this, I saw a comment on Twitter criticizing an article in The Atlantic. I haven’t read the article yet, but the subtitle reads, “After multiple lockdowns, three vaccines, and one bout of COVID, I want my life back.” The criticism was about how selfish (or privileged) that type of thinking is in the face of over five million deaths. First World Problems. And while I see the critic’s point, I have to disagree with his/her dismissal of someone else’s reality. Someone else, somewhere else always has it harder… and while it’s good to keep things in perspective, suffering isn’t a competition and compassion shouldn’t be reserved for only the most dire. I think we all want our life back (which the critic acknowledged later in his/her thread). As I think about why I write and share – it’s mostly to get it out, to maybe be a little funny, and to possibly help someone else out there feel less alone. This has been a two-year ordeal for nearly everyone on the planet, and I suspect a lot of people struggle to recognize their lives from “before times.” Our individual experiences will all be different but there is still a collective shared experience, shared loss, shared longing. If we only focus on the bigger tragedy, if we only give voice to the toughest losses, I think we miss the opportunity to connect (or reconnect) on a more personal and nuanced level.