There’s a support group for just about everything. People who eat too much, people who love too much, people who binge on too much 90s TV, single parents, parents who have turned into their parents, parents who secretly wish they weren’t parents.
But the one support group that doesn’t exist is one for getting older. And I’m not talking about senior groups that take bus trips to Atlantic City. Or 50-plus yoga-goddess circles. I mean groups where people talk about the stuff that people don’t want to talk about — like how aging is a constant readjustment of self-image.
Part of aging is looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, “What’s this? Never seen that before.” Weird things appear on your body. Stuff shifts around. There are creaking sounds. Sudden pains inexplicably come and go. You become invisible to the male eye. You have to accept the fact that you’re inching closer to death, and that you can’t shop at the Gap anymore.
If all that doesn’t warrant a support group, I don’t know what does.
Not that aging doesn’t have its compensations. There’s the wisdom bit; learning from all the dumb things you did when you were young enough to get away with almost anything (“yeah, I won’t ever do that again!”). Plus, you can walk past a construction site without being leered at. And if you have grandkids, you get to spoil them with all the crap their parents won’t let them have. And eventually, people will think you’re cute and offer you a seat on the train. Well, maybe.
Check out Explode, a comedy thriller/mystery novel. Spontaneous human combustion, or murder?
Laurie Holman: Comedy Writer, Copywriter, Chocolate Connoisseur 