Life is a funny thing. Not funny like a clown, funny in the sense that it is difficult to figure out.
Take chest hair as an example. I remember when I was a teen and I was so nervous about whether I would have a decent showing of chest hair. As it turns out I finally did develop a decent showing of chest hair but now that it has taken root I have lost all control of it and it is migrating up, over my shoulders to my back.
Not only is it migrating onto the back forty, it is turning grey at an alarming rate. And my beard. Shit, I am the new silver-tip of the westcoast. Now I have to search to find the rare black hair in my beard.
The hair on my head. Well, actually the hair that was on my head is no more. Instead of growing on my head, the hair now grows like weeds out of my nose and ears. My eyebrows resemble the brambles growing around the deserted house next door.
And my stomach. Never mind the unseemly protrusion that makes me look more like a Buddha than the action film star I was destined to be. It is the inside that is more troubling.
In the old days I could and would eat anything. I always considered butter to be like a light-flavoured cheese. I would add a thick slice of butter to my afternoon bread and then cover that with a 1/2″ of peanut butter. No more. The consequences are too dire. The words inner-turmoil do not do this business justice.
I love chocolate. Not cheap candy bar chocolate but real chocolate. Eating a couple pieces of chocolate…I might as well have signed up for a colonic flush.
If I dare to even let peanut butter beyond the mid-section of my tongue I will have the most severe case of the flying axe handles that you could imagine. Brutal.
My late night bowl of coffee flavour Hagen Daaz? Good luck. Add some mayonaise to my breakfast sandwich? Pray there isn’t a traffic jam on my way to the nearest toilet.
Life. Humpf. Just when you are old enough and rich enough to enjoy it, your body quits being able to enjoy it.
Reminds me what my grandfather said to me one day shortly before he died; “This getting old isn’t for the faint of heart.”