BACKTRACKING
Another Year Gone By
by Terry Hogan
I suppose the title says
it all. I'm getting adjusted to
the fact that years pass by like months now. It isn't all bad, I guess. I used to have the problem of getting the right year on
checks and the like when a new year came around. It was hard to break the habit. It isn't a problem now. The year seems to go by so fast, that I haven't had time to
form the habit of writing the year; thus changing to yet another new year is
not troublesome.
I have a theory about
this. I borrowed much of it from
Einstein. But because he is dead, I
don't think he'll mind. My theory
is based on relativity. As we get
older, our metabolism slows down.
That is why we can eat a horse at age 20 and not gain an ounce . At 60, you drive by (not drive throughÉjust by), and you gain five
pounds. It is, I believe, nature's
way of coasting you down toward death.
This is probably where the phrase "over the hill" came
from. You are no longer accelerating,
but rather coasting down the slope, and as you get older, the slope flattens
out and you decelerate towards the inevitable outcome of life. In the meantime, as you slow down, the
rest of the maniacal world hurdles forward. It actually may be accelerating in its pace, or it may only
appear to do so in relative terms. As your metabolism slows down, all
other things, by comparison to you, appear to go fasterÉincluding the
calendar. Thus, the years just fly
by. It is Einstein's Theory of Relatively
applied to old age.
But Nature is not
without some sense of sympathy. To
ease the recognition of impending doom, as reflected by the metabolism
wind-down, Nature tampers with your short-term memory. If you can't remember what you did
yesterday, or even 5 minutes ago,
the decline in metabolism and the breakneck speed of the years goes unnoticed.
I expect the publication
of the theory would get me the Nobel Prize if it were published in the New York
Times, or some peer-review physics journal. But it will likely go unnoticed and unrecognized for the
broad implications that it has, until long after my death. Then a graduate student
will come across this obscure publication that pre-dates a more universally
recognized pronouncement of this insightful perspective. But like Einstein, if I'm dead, I won't mind too much about my failure
to achieve the recognition I deserved in my lifetime. We geniuses have a burden to bear.
So, as we rapidly begin
our brief passage through another year, it is nice to know that we need not
make New Years Resolutions. First,
given the short-tern memory component of my theory (see above, if you have
already forgotten), it is unlikely that any resolution will be remembered. And second, if we happen to remember, by
the time we start to implement the resolution with the best intent, it will be
2009.
Now this may all appear
to be a tad depressing. But don't worry about it. You won't remember it for very long ("Remember what?", you may
say). It is, after all, like
pain. You can remember having
pain, but you can't recreate pain in your mind. Such is the process of growing old.
Why am I writing about
this as I stare at the beginning of a new year? The answer is easy.
At some point in my life, new years began to promise more difficulties
than they did successes. While my
own body is telling me that I'm getting old in a chorus of voices from various component
parts, life appears to be conspiring
to increase expectations. Parenting
becomes a 180 degree event. You
find yourself parenting generations on both sides of your own. You find, that contrary to federal law,
age does become a factor in employment.
And frankly, there is some basis for it. Health issues, memory issues, and potential years of
employment are reasonably legitimate considerations for the potential employer. This is particularly true when costs of
health care coverage, offered by the employer, is based on the record of health
care claims. Seldom are things as
black and white as we'd sometimes like.
To all three or four of
my non-relative readers, I wish you the best for the New Year, and I hope you
enjoy it while it lasts. If it
appears to zip by in only a few months, it may be time to dig out a copy of
that old will and see if it needs updating. If this doesn't make any sense,
don't worry about it, it is already too late. But if you must, try speed reading my theory of relativity again,
and then skip the middle section of this article and come back directly to this
paragraph. If that doesn't work,
call your son or daughter and ask them to explain. They probably already possess the ability to "parent"
the adjoining generations.
As somebody said,
"life is a risky venture, but we'll all get through it." And so it is. It is just that the latter part goes so much faster than the
early part.
Make as much pleasure
for yourself as you can in 2008 and do it soon. It will be 2009 before you know it, if you're lucky. If you don't, you probably won't mind
(dark humor). If the last
sentence doesn't make sense, start writing things down, so you won't
forget.
And you can re-read this
article tomorrow and it will be all new to you.
12/31/07