Didn't My Skin Used to Fit? (12 page)

I was laughing so hard at myself when I stepped into the post office, the clerks must have thought they had another crazed lunatic on their hands. But I couldn’t help it. Here I had thought I was attracting the unwanted advances of a man, when I was merely attracting the attention of a canine who only wanted his freedom. No wonder they say it’s not a good idea to jump to conclusions. How we interpret a situation might have very little to do with reality.

So now when I hear someone make some sort of verbal advance at me, I turn to look before I start judging. After all, the next whistle I hear might be coming from a parrot, and it’s not easy to press harassment charges against fowl.

YOU KNOW YOU’RE
GETTING OLD WHEN . . .

you need a running start to go for a walk.

38
Plenty to Smile About

The ad read, ‘‘Do your teeth make you look ten years older than you really are?’’ Now,
there’s
a side effect of aging I hadn’t even considered.

The advertisement went on to say that as we age our teeth can darken, our gums recede, and our breath start smelling like last week’s laundry. I guess wrinkles and age spots weren’t enough, now our teeth have to get into the act.

And what’s this about receding gums? Why would they want to do a thing like that? There’s nothing honorable in receding. Can’t they hold on for another twenty or thirty years and then retreat?

None of it seems quite fair, does it? After all the attention we’ve given our teeth all these years, when we need them most, they’re going to start jumping ship one by one.

From as far back as I can remember, my father wore a full set of dentures. I know this because whenever he sneezed they’d fly out of his mouth and land some ten feet away. I don’t know if there’s ever been an Olympic event for this, but if there were, he would have taken home the gold.

My father even made his own denture repairs. If they didn’t fit just right (which was obvious since they were on the frequent-flyer program), he’d heat them over the kitchen stove, remolding them to whatever size or shape was needed. My father was creative that way. He probably could have set up a business fixing dentures for other people, but we lived in a residential area and I doubt if he could have gotten a zoning permit.

But Dad’s philosophy was why pay for dental work when you could just as easily do it yourself? Luckily, he didn’t have the same attitude when he had to have his appendix removed. I don’t think our butter knives could have done the job.

I’m not sure if I’d like having to wear dentures. There’s something about putting your teeth in a glass at night and waking up to their smiling back at you that’s unsettling. It’s a little Stephen King-ish, if you know what I mean.

Darkening teeth and receding gums aren’t the only mouth problems we have to be concerned about as we grow older. Over the years my jaw has developed a malady known as TMJ. Because of this condition, my jaw makes a popping sound whenever I eat. Sometimes the popping is so loud a seven-course meal can sound like a reggae concert. One of these days I might look into getting my jaw fixed, but until then I’m still looking to land a recording contract.

We should never allow ourselves to fall into the trap of thinking we’re too old to correct mouth or dental problems, however. Some people in their forties or fifties are getting braces for the first time. They’re correcting something that has bothered them for years. Too often by the time we reach middle age we tell ourselves, why bother? We figure if we’ve put up with something this long, why not put up with it for the rest of our lives? That’s limited thinking. No matter how old we are, chances are we still have some good years left, so why settle for dingy teeth, receding gums, or loose-fitting dentures?

We should all do what we can to improve our smiles. After all, it’s one of the most important aspects of our appearance.

Do not worry, saying, ‘‘What shall we eat?’’ or ‘‘What shall we drink?’’ or ‘‘What shall we wear?’’ . . . your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
—Matthew 6:31–32 NIV

39
Seasons

Growing up in the Los Angeles area, I didn’t really get to experience the changes of seasons. The only variation we had was going from wearing long sleeves in winter to short sleeves in spring to no sleeves in summer to three-quarter sleeves in the fall. The only big changes in our weather reports were the jokes.

When I moved to Tennessee, I finally got to see what a real change of seasons looks like. It snows in Tennessee—just enough to remind you that the white stuff exists. After a few months the winter cold gives way to spring with all the dogwoods blooming in bright splashes of pink and white. Summer has a different kind of beauty, with more shades of green than you could imagine. To me, the most beautiful of all seasons here is the fall. I think no matter where I might live in the future, I’d always want to spend some of the fall in Tennessee. The drive from Nashville to the Smoky Mountains is breathtaking. It’s as though someone came along and aerial-sprayed barrels of orange, yellow, red, and brown paint all over the countryside.

Being over forty is like being in the fall of your life.

Spring, of course, is the time when new life is birthed, and one can’t help but be filled with anticipation for what each new day will bring. It’s a period of firsts: the first smile, the first tooth, the first steps, and the first time to shave the cat. A few bruises are earned learning to walk, words are jumbled learning to talk, and a few plates of spaghetti are dumped learning to eat, but eventually these tasks are mastered and one moves on.

The summer of life—the teenage–young adult years—is full of fun and wonder. You experience life on a new level, making your own decisions and having to live with the outcomes. Life is an adventure, and you want to enjoy every minute of it. You might stumble once in a while getting your footing, but you’ve been around long enough to realize the importance of getting up and trying again.

Fall is the season of change—in nature and in life. Your children are moving out and going away to college or getting married and having children of their own. You might be changing jobs or retiring, downsizing your home, reevaluating your priorities, and altering your opinions on a thing or two. Age tends to mellow all but the most closed-minded individual.

Winter is a time for reflection, a time to look back and smile about the good times and assess what you’ve learned from the not-so-good times. A tree doesn’t fear when winter’s coming. It doesn’t lower its head and cry because most of its leaves have dried up and fallen off. (OK, maybe a weeping willow cries in winter, but it probably has other issues it’s dealing with.)

A tree knows that every season of its life is equally beautiful. That’s why it stands just as proudly in the fall as in the spring. It’s content no matter what the season. It doesn’t try to change its fall colors into summer colors or wear its spring colors after autumn has set in. It takes each season as it comes and appreciates its beauty for what it is.

We could learn a lot from a tree.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
—Albert Einstein

40
The Search

I tried killing a spider today. I squashed it three times with my shoe but it bounced right back. That’s when I realized it was a dust ball.

I think my age is starting to affect my eyesight.

Mistaking a dust ball for a spider may be a more common occurrence than one might think. I’m sure many middle-agers have made the same incorrect assessment. Mistaking a dust ball for a cat, however, would not only mean I need a new pair of glasses but also the entire crew of Molly Maids.

A good friend of mine warned me that sometime after forty my eyesight would change. He said I would be reading the newspaper, a magazine, or a book and all of a sudden the letters would start running together. ‘‘Congress passes tax cut’’ would become ‘‘Fuphmfi hkswop ruilizhs.’’ Either version would still be hard to believe.

My friend was right, though. Once I hit forty, my vision did change, and it seemingly happened overnight. I went to bed with 20/20 vision, and by breakfast I couldn’t read the morning paper unless someone was holding it ten feet away.

OK, it’s not quite that bad, but I am up to a 2 percent magnification in drugstore glasses. My optometrist is the one who recommended I buy my glasses at the drugstore. He told me if 2 percent was all the magnification I needed, why not spend $10 instead of $100? I like my optometrist. Of course, he’s one of the last medical professionals still driving a Pacer.

My biggest problem with glasses is remembering to keep them with me. I’ve left them at work, at church, at restaurants, at department stores, at gas stations. The most common place I leave them, though, is on top of my head. I can never find them there. It’s the last place I look.

What I want to know is why we don’t lose other things on top of our head. When’s the last time you saw someone walking around with a curling iron on her head, looking for her curling iron? Or her brush. Or a football helmet. That’s because you usually don’t forget when those things are up there. The curling iron is a bit unwieldy, a brush might be a possibility, but a football helmet? Well, you’d just know. So why is it so easy to lose our glasses up there? I guess it’s just one of those unexplained phenomena of life.

I should probably buy one of those little dishes they make especially for glasses. You know, the ones that say something clever like ‘‘Here they are, stupid.’’ But I’m afraid a dish to hold my glasses would be just as easy to misplace.

Maybe they should start equipping eyeglasses with tracking devices. Then as soon as we realize our glasses are missing, we could call a central number, report the disappearance, and within seconds our glasses would start beeping.

Of course, if they are on top of your head, all the beeping could really give you a migraine.

I would never have amounted to anything were it not for adversity.
—J. C. (James Cash) Penney

41
Scars

Most of us don’t make it through life without a few scars. Over the years we’ve scraped a knee or two, maybe even broken a few bones. Life, though full of wonder and excitement, also comes with its share of pain.