Some meandering thoughts on the passage of time and getting older

By Bobby Neal Winters

If the time of year made a sound, right now it would be making the sound of a spinning quarter on a table top. The quarter would be about to tip over and do its final flops before coming to a rest.

We still have the month of December ahead.  On one hand, that is one-twelfth of the year; on the other hand, it disappears like a snowflake in an October snow.  Soon we will find it is New Year’s Eve and we will be wondering where the Old Year went.

Even though I draw the bulk of my pay for the service of administration, I still teach a class.  This is in part because of the advice the academic vice president who originally hired me gave when he learned I was interested in administration. “Never stop teaching,” he said.

And I haven’t.  It was good advice. Rest in peace, Dr. Ratzalf.

I am teaching a small, upper-division class this semester.  The students in it are younger than my youngest child, the daughter we had when we were pushing forty. Time passes differently for them than it does for me.  To me, this semester has disappeared, well, like a snowflake in an October snow. 

In my mind, we’ve just started.  Today, I met them and gave them their last lecture before their last regular exam.  I taught the material, and my feeling was that they couldn’t’ve had the time to absorb the material that led up to this point.

But they seem okay about it.  To them, this semester has lasted months and not just moments.

If only they knew how quickly they would be sixty.

As this is an upper division class, some of them are going to graduate this semester, and some of them are going to graduate school to work on their masters degree.  I still have dreams of that time in my life.  My professors and my fellow students are still a part of my unconscious mind.

They are still with me, but, as I said, it was just an eyeblink ago.  That is, if it takes 40 years to blink an eye.

I spend more time trying to remember words and names than I used to.  It used to be “pop,” and there it was.  Now it sometimes takes seconds, minutes, or even weeks.  I suppose that I should feel good that I remember for weeks that I’d forgotten a word a few weeks ago, but it doesn’t really work like that.

Today, I was telling my students something that had happened in 1995, and it occurred to me to ask, “Were you even born then?”

No. No they were not.

Never ask a question you don’t want to hear the answer to.

My hair is almost totally white now.  I put that word almost in there just in case someone with a magnifying glass calls me on it.

As those of you who follow this space or who are acquainted with me in real life know, I’ve lost a lot of weight recently.  This is good; I feel better than I have in years.  Those who watch me walk by now as I walk downtown will see that I go at quite a bit faster clip than I did even a year ago.

There is a down side though.  Whereas the subcutaneous fat used to push my skin with enough tension to make it smooth, this is no longer the case.  I have wrinkles where they didn’t used to be. And worse, I have waddles in diverse places.

What’s more, these waddles are larger than they might otherwise be because I’ve lost so much weight.

I wonder if I would look younger if I got my waddles pierced and put earrings through them.

Probably not.

I am not as worried about getting old as I may have made it sound.  I had a friend who died of cancer in his forties who was denied this experience.  I think I should choose to glory in it as much as possible.

I’ve never been vain about my appearance--you only need to look at me to know--so the white hair, the wrinkles, and the waddles don’t bother me.

No, if I were to worry, it would be about taking so long to remember words, to remember names.  As my mother had dementia, that might be actually a legitimate thing to worry about.  But I don’t think it’s that.

I think that once you reach a certain age you’ve had so many experiences, have met so many people, have learned so many things, that it just takes time to pick your way through all of them.

I still remember the things I need to know: the number of the director of HR, the number of the University Attorney, and the number of the Title IX office.  Anything beside that, you can take the time to look up.

And I can still solve more problems with one two-minute phone call than most junior faculty could in a month of Sundays.  And NO, I have not retired. Not hardly.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like'' the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube. )