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When someone called me “Manong” for the first
time, I thought it was just a joke. But when a young lady stood up
and offered me her seat inside a bus, saying “Lolo, maupo ho
kayo,” I really panicked.
This happened about 20 years ago
when I was in my early 40s and when I began to have a streak of gray
hair.
Like being hit by a thunderbolt,
I could not believe that I was getting old. It seems that it was
only yesterday when I was full of vigor. When you are young, you
don’t actually walk; you swagger. You seem to be always in a
hurry.
I remember when I was covering
the diplomatic beat and later working as deskman and editor,
everything seemed to be on the fast lane. There was so much to do in
so little time. There were events to be covered, stories to be
written, copy to be edited, and deadlines to be met.
It was a dizzying life. After an
exhaustive day at the beat or in the newsroom, you unwound to
replenish the lost energy, and you drank. When I was younger, I
always vowed to limit my intake of beer to six bottles. But after
six bottles, I lost count or just stopped counting altogether.
It was not unusual for bar habitués
like us to stay up to the wee hours at the old bar of the National
Press Club, using the convenient excuse of waiting for the traffic
to ease up before going home. We drank or played domino at the club
and did other things afterward. The options were infinite. It was an
orgiastic life.
The next morning, you wondered
how you arrived home alive in your rickety l969 Toyota. You swore
that some unseen hands must have driven you home because you could
not even remember boarding your car, let alone driving it home.
Thinking of it now really scares me.
Youth
In his poem, “Youth,” Samuel
Ullman says, “youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind.
It is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is
a matter of the will, a quality of imagination, a vigor of the
emotions.”
“You are only as young as your
faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as
old as your fears; as young as your hope, as old as your despair,”
Ullman continues.
Encouraging words, huh?
But is it state of the mind when
the pain in your legs caused by gout or arthritis refuses to go
away? Or when you are gasping for breath because of asthma? Or when
your right extremities won’t obey your brain’s command because
the nerves have been deadened by a recent stroke?
Or is it state of the mind when
you can feel a sudden blip in your heart probably because of wear
and tear for non-stop beating for the past 60 years? Or having a
failing vision or fading memory?
Tempura mutantur, et nos mutamur
in illis. The times are changing, and we with the times.
Contrary to Ullman’s poem,
growing old is not a state of mind but is the inexorable passage of
time.
Indeed, you are already growing
old, if you experience the following:
- When after more than 30 years
of marriage, you suddenly realize that your wife cooks the best food
in the world.
- When you begin to smell the
fragrance of the roses in your wife’s garden which you didn’t
even know existed before.
- When the car tailing you
suddenly swerves and cuts into your lane and you do not curse the
driver.
- When you become tolerant with
your staff if you are the boss, and with yourself if you are not.
- When you knock off early after
savoring the last drop of sunlight and rise at the first crack of
dawn the next day.
- When your visit to your doctor
becomes more frequent and when your medicine bills keep on rising.
- When you enjoy sipping your red
wine alone in your library, listening to oldies of Nat King Cole,
Jerry Vale or Henry Mancini.
- When your greatest dream now is
to make that long-delayed journey to your village to go fishing or
just to take a glimpse, perhaps for the last time, of those familiar
spots in your childhood.
- When you begin to discover the
power of prayers and to silently commune with your God, a thing that
you failed to do when you were younger and stronger. If you begin to
experience some of these, then like me, you are indeed growing old.
opinion@manilatimes.net
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