John McLoone

If you’re reading this, you’re still aging.

We all are.

I, for one, am really starting to feel it. I’m already dreading winter, a couple months away. After the cool weather the last few nights, I’ve been near panic attack thinking of what’s to come. My kids resurrected some pictures on social media recently that gave me memories of when I was younger, and then there was another one about a year or so old. There were pictures of my kids on a trip somewhere, and there was an old man in the picture. It wasn’t some creepy guy who snuck into the picture, though. That old man was me. He shows many telltale signs of being on the brink of elderly. My hair has virtually lost all color, unless you count white.

I’m much too late, I think, for a midlife crisis. Plus, I don’t have the energy for it. Sit me on a recliner with a blanket over my knees.

Somewhere along the line, I’ve transformed into an old man. More specifically, I’m now “the old man.”

When I was a kid, people used to correct me when I would call my dad “the old man.” Truth is, though, that’s how he referred to himself. If he left a phone message, it was to “call the old man.”

To top it off, I’ve (helped) raise four kids past age 26 (I think). Sure, that’s more a testament to their mother than it is to me, but I was along for a lot of rides.

I’ve successfully made it past 60. In fact, who would have thought someone as accident-prone as me would get this far?

Instead of fighting my old age, I’m going to embrace it. We’re heading to a family wedding out of town this weekend, and you’re darn right I told them I need the AARP restaurant. Cheap coffee for old folks at restaurants? I’m in.

And I’m going to start complaining more. Now that I’m old, I guess I now have a license to say whatever I’m thinking. I don’t have to hold anything back anymore. I also have to start repeating my stories. And I’m going to start saying whatever I want and complain. See? I have the repeating part down already.

I’m not quite ready for the block socks with my shorts, though. I’ll give it a try in a couple years and get back to you on that.