Somebody said that growing old is not for sissies. I have anecdotal experience that this is true. It's hard to find too many positives of going past grey other than you are not yet dead. But I found one recently. Really, I did. Want to hear about it? O.K., I'll tell you.
A few years back, maybe three, I wrote a post lamenting the fact that I frightened people, particularly women, when I was out running. It happened, it happened a lot, and it always made me feel crummy. And I could not understand it. I am a small, demure, not young man who is about as aggressive as a toad frog. Even the local police, the few encounters I have had with them, seemed terrified of me. I am not exaggerating. I could tell you some stuff but you would not believe it. You would think I am telling tales out of school.
Recently, I have been too slow and too lazy to cross the road when I found myself approaching women walkers or runners. Lately, however, I have not had a single negative encounter with other pedestrians. No women grabbed a five pound dog and yelled, "Don't bite!" No women automatically raised cell phones to ears and pretended to be talking to someone. No women looked at me with fear on their faces and in their eyes. No women shuffle across the road ahead of me in haste. It took a while, but I finally figured out why, what changed.
It was my dentist, Dr. Todd Fincher, who asked me-- as he pried my mouth open with a crow bar-- if I was running. I told him-- when he finally let go of my jaw--that I was "down to a shuffle but too stubborn to quit." I had to have another appointment a few days later. Between the two appointments, I met him and his wife while they were walking north on Grand Boulevard and I was running south on the same sidewalk.
At my next dental visit he said, "You're right, Zane."
"What am I right about?" I asked in genuine curiosity, not sure what he was talking about.
"You're down to a shuffle."
Ouch.
I had even picked up the pace when I saw then that day. But his assessment was I am a shuffling old man.
I knew he was right even though that knowledge was not what I wanted to hear, not what I could totally accept. He told the truth. And with that I began to realize why I was no longer putting fear in women. I am now such a shuffling old stumble bum that it is impossible to feel threatened by my presence. While I grieve my loss of speed, I welcome the new reactions, or lack of them, that I get from people. It's nice to know that I am not making people uncomfortable, that I am not causing anxiety. That, for me, has been one benefit of getting old.
Although I still think of myself as that lean twenty-something, long striding runner who ate upthe road in steak-sized bites, I know that is not reality. It takes time, however, sometimes a long time, for self perception and reality to match. I guess. Maybe for me they never have. Even then I had delusions of grandeur. I always thought I was better than I was and the real me would come out one day if I just kept showing up, just kept putting in the miles.
But while on one level I know the truth, on another level I continue to dream backwards to lost youth, to lost ability, to vanished speed. It will come back, I tell myself, if I just keep showing up and putting in the miles. Hope refuses to die, even when the mind knows better.
But why quibble with myself? The weather is good, I can run (or shuffle), and I cause no fear. Life is good. Take what God gives and be grateful for it, thank Him for it, count it a gift. It is.
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