Getting Over Old.

6/22/22

Everything lately seems to revolve around old age and death.

Last week, a guy I didn’t initially recognize came up to me while I was sweeping the parking lot at work. Only in the midst of our conversation did I come to realize he was part of a group of kids that used to frequent here back in the day. They would talk to me, and I’d do my best to keep them out of trouble. They were troubled kids from broken homes and it killed me seeing what their childhoods were doing to them.

Now in his twenties, he told me how he’d just gotten custody of his kids and was trying to get his life in order. He seemed authentically happy to see me and it was nice talking to him, but I couldn’t get over how quickly time had gone by, how much he had matured, and how fucking old I was.

Last weekend, on Saturday, I went to see my parents, who decided to celebrate Father’s Day, my sister, Linda’s birthday, and my nephew’s birthday all at once. It was hard to believe he was turning five. It made me think how I hated it when adults used to say to me as a kid, “You’re getting so big. I remember when you were knee high…”

Now I get it. Now I am that adult.

I was playing with the dogs outside, my mother and sisters were talking, and dad was running around with my nephew. Suddenly someone asked, “Are you all right?” I look up and from behind one of the cars I saw the legs of my father, who had tripped and fell. Mom and I helped him up, and he said he was okay, but the horror that filled me in those few moments was indescribable. Given the look on my mother’s face, she felt the same way.

My parents age and the fact that they won’t be around forever is entirely impossible to ignore anymore. I was quite happy when they picked me up on their way to get their new puppy, a fluffy German Shepherd that looked more akin to a baby bear. I sat in the back seat and held him all the way home. At some point that day, my parents referred to the little guy, who they named Tank, would be their “last puppy.” My heart sank. They’ve entirely made peace with their lives, it seems, and their approaching, inevitable end. The thought of losing either of them utterly terrifies me.

Sunday, a lot more happened to remind me how time is flying by. Within an hour of coming into work, I learn that the youngest child of a girl that used to work here — who was literally just as high as my knee the last I saw him — was now working with us.

Later, I was cleaning up lobby when I passed a girl. We both glanced at each other while passing before we both stopped, backed up, and met each others eyes again. It was Heidi, who worked here years ago. She used to be heavy into drugs, hard and soft, and with her sunken, racoon eyes back then, she looked it, but there was always something about her I found strangely attractive. She was always sweet to me, always seemed a rather happy person in general, and she always had sinister and sexy facial expressions. Behind her eyes there always seemed to be something dirty, something kinky hiding.

That part clearly hadn’t changed.

She had gone into rehab years back and gained a fuckload of weight, but she had lost quite a bit since then. Eyes no longer sunken, she looked healthy, clear-headed.

The first thing she says to me once we meet eyes the second time is, “You got old.”

It was so unexpected I burst out laughing, as did she, and we hugged. She had just gotten out of jail again, she told me, and had gotten a job at a hotel in Kent. It was her first day. In response to her calling me old and my hair having gone gray, I blamed working here all these years. She asked if I’d been here twenty years. She was close enough.

Later in the evening, I was doing something up by front drive thru when I saw another guy that used to be part of another group of kids that used to hang out here. They were skateboarders and I got to know them pretty well. This was the kid they used to call Tackle Box on account of all the piercings on his face.

Some time ago, that group started working somewhere where they were being taught to be welders and making good money and they always urged me to come work with them, to get the hell out of McDonald’s. We didn’t speak when I saw him at the drive thru window, but through glances it was like he was sad to see that, years later, I was still working here, rotting away in this shit fucking job, and I fear the look on my face clearly communicated, however nonverbal, how ashamed I was that this was the case.

It’s almost as if the universe is trying to communicate to me that I’m old and I’ve pretty much been running in place since my teens. Time is speeding up and before I know it I’ll be dead, so I should really work on finding my place in this shitstorm of a world. I need to get another job, maybe try to make some consistent cash over some creative pursuit on the side as well, and move closer to my parents. I’ve said this for years, of course, but I really need to get my ass in gear. I see my parents fairly frequently, but I’m still my distant self, and I know I’ll regret not being around as much once they’re gone.