My friends are getting old.

                  Because I am – can’t be helped. Each combats decay in our own way. Some defiantly, some pathetically, some with a sigh. Conversations commence with “organ recitals” – not because we’re self-engrossed, but because that’s how we’re spending our time. Moms discuss their kids, seniors their bodies. Not to would be negligent. We owe our loved ones all the haleness we can muster. How dispiriting the oldster who has “let themselves go.” 

                  I kid a granddaughter. “Want me to be laughing at your funeral?” she bristles. “I always want you to be happy,” I retort; “won’t bother me.” Let me surprise her with another good twenty years, I vow silently; she’d like that. 

                  Focus on “aches and pains” is decried as self-indulgent, though we all do it. How morbid, juniors recoil with distaste! I used to think that – but now I find I’m strangely comforted by this communality of decrepitude. Everybody our age has something amiss, some predator lurking. It heartens to know we’re not alone – and so much better off than so-and-so – and still kicking (albeit creakily). 

                  There’s a gallantry – almost knight-errantry – in our contest with death. Of course we lose in the end – no surprise there – but what suspense and interest in how we fight the fight! I love that line from Macbeth (I love so many of my master’s lines):

                          Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it.

I’ve a penchant for self-dramatization (you may have noticed). Let my final act deserve such a rave review.

                  I spend a lot of time anticipating my demise. I have since my dad died when I was sixteen. Before then death was hypothetical. Then in the robustness of early middle age, brimming with dreams, he fell kerplunk like a plugged bird. And he died badly, bitterly, without gallantry. I would improve on that performance, see if I wouldn’t! (Sons are always looking for ways to best their dads.)

                  Age seventy-five, I find myself fumbling in a new-found-land. None of my male forbears lived so long. I’ve dodged several fatal bullets so far and, per my docs, continue fit. Now what? How much runway remains? Have I a year of productivity left, or five, or fifteen? (Don’t push it, Carll!) Schubert, Keats, Pergolesi, Rupert Brooke, Masaccio, Aubrey Beardsley accomplished all their life’s work – all! – in a shorter space of time. Get cracking, you layabout!

                  I care for my body so it will care for me. It’s vehicle maintenance. I used to skip it – such a bore – and then my car would break down at the worst possible moment! I take my dozen pills daily with monastic rigor. Two docs convinced me my extra weight might cost me years. Twenty-three pounds lighter (so far) I’m devoted to my dual GIP–GLP-1 receptor agonist (say that three times fast: Zepbound, for short). I’m smug notching my belt, as if I was earning an elongated coda. (Who else among you makes deals with a divinity you doubt exists?)

                  It’s sad, getting old. The gladder your autumn, the sadder seeing it pass. The sadness sometimes whacks me. I envy dog-pal Henry his indifference to time. But then I shake off my melancholy impatiently. An hour spent moping is an hour wasted from my dwindling store. Get with the program, Carllino.

                  My plan is to exit life in a blaze of glory. I grant the absurdity of planning what I cannot control; even so, the prospect pleases. I feel you rooting me on. That too may be delusory but what the hell.