Letting go – Goodbye Justin. Goodbye John. Goodbye Gary. Goodbye…
As a young man and even as a middle age man, I just knew that one day I would look in the mirror and see the inner image of the hunk which I was intended to be finally emerging to be an exterior reality. The fact that well into my thirties I still got carded and was only attractive to those who, sadly, were attracted to teenage boys did not bode well for my dating possibilities. I just knew, however, that one day I would look in the mirror and see the image of Gary Grant, Frank Sinatra, or John Wayne. Alas, that did not happen and now I look in the mirror and hunger for the face and body of the young man whose body parts were at least proportional and hair was artfully placed on those body parts where hair was intended to be.
For a time, I could blame my changing body shape on side effects of medication. Indeed, lipodystrophy in the neck and breast and face did present me with a different image than that I had been used to. I longed for my previous distribution of weight. Still, at least this new body was a side effect of medications.
Of course, as I began to visit my fifties, then the sixties and finally the seventies even I had to accept that some of the changes I was seeing in the mirror were due to the simple fact of aging. Soon I was hearing, “You look good for your age.” Really! Do not, I repeat, do not tell someone they look good for their age! It is not received as a compliment no matter what the intention. Please do immediately wash out your mouth with soap! What were you thinking?
My early experience as a man who lived with the Vietnam war, other wars, and illness such as AIDS brought home the truth that life is very tenuous. Friends and family are going to leave one day or I am going to leave them. Death happens. With war and with AIDS, death was at worst spread out over a matter of months. Later, with AIDS, wars and increasingly with other illness it was spread out a bit longer. Still, it was not decades long.
As a male, first, as one ages, many of us have to bid adieu to one’s hairline. Next one says goodbye to one’s hair natural color. Soon, one notices that it is sheer torture to carry one’s wallet in one’s back pocket. One’s posterior has suddenly disappeared. Where does it go? It was here one day and then it is gone. This does not seem to be true for women. Yet, we men, must face the reality of the disappearing “ass”. What is this about? At least with sagging jaws and breasts one can see merely a redistribution. Although it may not be attractive at least one can trace the journey. With the ass, it suddenly just is no more.
Body hair unlike the sagging parts or the disappearing parts becomes delusional. Suddenly each follicle thinks it is a Mexican jumping bean. Hair jumps from one body area to another. A hair which was formerly on one’s head or perhaps on one’s lower leg is suddenly, overnight, residing on the side of one’s nose. Some will appear on the top of one’s earlobe. Apparently, the Gods of aging have decided that hearing, breathing through the nose and smelling is no longer necessary as hair masses to block those passages. The bushy eyebrows threaten one sight. What is this, the hear no evil, see no evil, smell no evil approach to spiritual enlightenment?
Any illusions one might have had about the spiritual awakening of the mirror and thus finally reflecting Justin Trudeau shirtless, hunky body - God’s gift to same and opposite sex - is history.
I have shared the story with many of the time as a young man when my job took me to a meeting at the United States Marine base at Quantico, Virginia. I was determined to look like the boy wonder who could at least masquerade as an adult man and one who commanded resect. I had on my newest polyester suit (then in vogue among the unenlightened), polyester tie, white shirt, nearly trimmed hair and the requisite black wing tip shoes. This was a time when cigarettes were standard office equipment. I leaned over a desk to shake someone’s hand and the crotch of my suit trousers came in contact with a lit cigarette. Poof! The entire crotch of my pants melted revealing my boring white undergarments! So much for illusions of perfection. It seemed the Gods of nicotine addiction had conspired to remind me of humility. There have been many subsequent lessons in humility – of letting go of illusions and attachments. Yet, it seems to me that the forced abandonment of one’s male posterior and the acceptance of the indignity of wayward hairs and the subsequent blocking of sight, sound and smell is overkill. On the other hand, it is very difficult if one can no longer claim sight, smells or hearing, to ignore the obvious reminders of one basic humanness.
One is tempted to write an ode to one’s posterior and, yet, that might defeat the purpose of its disappearance.
One knows that from dust to dust is a reality of this journey but do we really need the indignity of daily being forced on a march away from the truth of our inner Justin Trudeauness! I am sure he has a perfectly intact and well rounded, sexy posterior. Yet, thank God, one day he too will bid it adieu!
Written December 9, 2016
As a young man and even as a middle age man, I just knew that one day I would look in the mirror and see the inner image of the hunk which I was intended to be finally emerging to be an exterior reality. The fact that well into my thirties I still got carded and was only attractive to those who, sadly, were attracted to teenage boys did not bode well for my dating possibilities. I just knew, however, that one day I would look in the mirror and see the image of Gary Grant, Frank Sinatra, or John Wayne. Alas, that did not happen and now I look in the mirror and hunger for the face and body of the young man whose body parts were at least proportional and hair was artfully placed on those body parts where hair was intended to be.
For a time, I could blame my changing body shape on side effects of medication. Indeed, lipodystrophy in the neck and breast and face did present me with a different image than that I had been used to. I longed for my previous distribution of weight. Still, at least this new body was a side effect of medications.
Of course, as I began to visit my fifties, then the sixties and finally the seventies even I had to accept that some of the changes I was seeing in the mirror were due to the simple fact of aging. Soon I was hearing, “You look good for your age.” Really! Do not, I repeat, do not tell someone they look good for their age! It is not received as a compliment no matter what the intention. Please do immediately wash out your mouth with soap! What were you thinking?
My early experience as a man who lived with the Vietnam war, other wars, and illness such as AIDS brought home the truth that life is very tenuous. Friends and family are going to leave one day or I am going to leave them. Death happens. With war and with AIDS, death was at worst spread out over a matter of months. Later, with AIDS, wars and increasingly with other illness it was spread out a bit longer. Still, it was not decades long.
As a male, first, as one ages, many of us have to bid adieu to one’s hairline. Next one says goodbye to one’s hair natural color. Soon, one notices that it is sheer torture to carry one’s wallet in one’s back pocket. One’s posterior has suddenly disappeared. Where does it go? It was here one day and then it is gone. This does not seem to be true for women. Yet, we men, must face the reality of the disappearing “ass”. What is this about? At least with sagging jaws and breasts one can see merely a redistribution. Although it may not be attractive at least one can trace the journey. With the ass, it suddenly just is no more.
Body hair unlike the sagging parts or the disappearing parts becomes delusional. Suddenly each follicle thinks it is a Mexican jumping bean. Hair jumps from one body area to another. A hair which was formerly on one’s head or perhaps on one’s lower leg is suddenly, overnight, residing on the side of one’s nose. Some will appear on the top of one’s earlobe. Apparently, the Gods of aging have decided that hearing, breathing through the nose and smelling is no longer necessary as hair masses to block those passages. The bushy eyebrows threaten one sight. What is this, the hear no evil, see no evil, smell no evil approach to spiritual enlightenment?
Any illusions one might have had about the spiritual awakening of the mirror and thus finally reflecting Justin Trudeau shirtless, hunky body - God’s gift to same and opposite sex - is history.
I have shared the story with many of the time as a young man when my job took me to a meeting at the United States Marine base at Quantico, Virginia. I was determined to look like the boy wonder who could at least masquerade as an adult man and one who commanded resect. I had on my newest polyester suit (then in vogue among the unenlightened), polyester tie, white shirt, nearly trimmed hair and the requisite black wing tip shoes. This was a time when cigarettes were standard office equipment. I leaned over a desk to shake someone’s hand and the crotch of my suit trousers came in contact with a lit cigarette. Poof! The entire crotch of my pants melted revealing my boring white undergarments! So much for illusions of perfection. It seemed the Gods of nicotine addiction had conspired to remind me of humility. There have been many subsequent lessons in humility – of letting go of illusions and attachments. Yet, it seems to me that the forced abandonment of one’s male posterior and the acceptance of the indignity of wayward hairs and the subsequent blocking of sight, sound and smell is overkill. On the other hand, it is very difficult if one can no longer claim sight, smells or hearing, to ignore the obvious reminders of one basic humanness.
One is tempted to write an ode to one’s posterior and, yet, that might defeat the purpose of its disappearance.
One knows that from dust to dust is a reality of this journey but do we really need the indignity of daily being forced on a march away from the truth of our inner Justin Trudeauness! I am sure he has a perfectly intact and well rounded, sexy posterior. Yet, thank God, one day he too will bid it adieu!
Written December 9, 2016
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