A Beautiful Moment

La vecchiaia e carogna.

That's Italian for "old age is carrion."

Choose your favorite expression. "Old age is not for the squeamish....not for the weak....not for sissies....not for wimps." "Old age is carrion."

Such a sad and lonely truth.

When you get older you break down, you get sick, you get weak, you suffer indignities. Eventually you crawl into or get thrown into a grave. You rarely walk proudly into death. You die in defeat. An insulting way to end whatever your life was.

I popped into the hospital this morning to get the ultrasound done on my thigh blob.

Apparently the results will be available to me online today to peruse; I will hear from Dr. Feelgood in a day or two. Very exciting.

That's not the point.

I waited only a couple of minutes in the waiting area before I was ushered in for "the procedure."

That was enough. I was the youngest in the room by 75 years. I also appeared to be the healthiest. That was my impression, superficially. But the truth is that, most likely, a lot of these people are not much older than me, if at all. They are people who have been battered by life and are weak, old beyond their years, close to being devoid of hope.

How long before that is me?

Every time I see a doctor I am surrounded by the old and feeble. This is because the shit I am dealing with is old people shit. Except when I went in for knee surgery. I was happy to see a young guy in the waiting area, waiting for surgery. Happy to see a young person damaged.

Walkers, wheelchairs, canes, oxygen masks - mothers and fathers - weak and helpless - being escorted in and out by their middle-aged children.

I fucking hate it. But that is my fate. I am well on my way.

When I walked out of the hospital into the sunshine today, I almost raised my arms in victory and yelled "I made it - I am walking out - not in - and I am doing it on my own. I-am-still-free."

I am not kidding. When I hit the sunshine I had an emotional reaction that surprised me. I was so glad to be walking out of there.

The waiting room got to me. The room where the ultrasound was done, got to me. A room with no windows. Muted lights. Quiet. When she was done the technician had to leave the room to run the results by the radiologist.

I was on the table, alone in this room, in an undignified state of dress and undignified position - just me and my thoughts.

And I was thinking: "I am tired of this shit already. I am only 68 and I have endured many indignities over the last 3 or 4 years. Indignities that are in stark contrast with my self-image. Beyond that, I thought about what Carol has endured since 2017. Indignities that are ten-fold more intrusive than my own."

And I thought: "We are getting old. And life is taking its shots. Old age is not for the squeamish. How long can you hang on? How much can a human being take before life wins and they drop the final curtain? On a broken, battered, humiliated body that once walked in hope."

I stopped at Dunkin on the way home and picked up breakfast and coffee for me and Carol. We grabbed our food and sat down and watched a Law & Order together.

It was a beautiful moment.