The Lines In My Face

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The lines in my face are real, I earned them; they aren't there because I spent thousands of dollars on plastic surgery to make myself look older, I am older! I got to this stage of life not by accident but because it is God's will that I live this long. Maybe it is a form of punishment for something evil I did in my youth, or maybe it is because I have been selected for a reason or reasons I don't yet understand, but I do believe he is keeping me around for something else.

Punishment, you might ask? It seems that way sometimes when I look back at the struggles I have endured and think about more of them just ahead. The challenges of staying focused when times were darkest such as losing loved ones and the sadness of losing all of those amazing pets that have shared my life, not to mention the thousands of times things didn't go just the way I hoped they would. The longer we live the more we can expect to feel those emotions again, not to mention new aches and pains and worries of what will become of us when we can no longer be in charge of our lives. Yes, the lines in my face are real and soon there will be more of them in a face that I often find unfamiliar. 

You wouldn't know it to look at me now but there was a time not too many years ago that I might have passed for a handsome man to some people. Why, I can recall when total strangers would look at me and then look again, and sometimes I could feel their eyes scanning me and looking me over and it was not uncommon for them to smile and actually say something indicative of interest in me! Of course that isn't likely to happen now and if it did some might think it was a miracle; moreover I would be quite surprised myself if it did! But I don't count on it because I am in that cycle of life when hiding in plain sight from most of the people I come in contact with gets easier and easier. I am able to go almost anywhere now unnoticed and if I want to be I have to actually do something that would probably be out of my character. Just being myself doesn't work like it used to.

Those lines are real but I find comfort in them nonetheless because they remind me of where I have been, the things I saw and experienced; the things that will take those who never notice me many more years to catch up with! There is no substitute for being around a lot of years and doing lots of things to understand all of this; my life could not become a course of study that could make a student fully understand what caused those lines and why I have lost muscle mass in my body or shrank an inch in height over the years; one would have to be able to answer..."almost 63"  if someone were to ask how old they are to know why there are more lines in my face this year than there were last year, or why my hair looks like hair seen in old black and white TV shows and movies. Were that a color photo you would see there are only traces of what it all was ten or fifteen years ago. I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed when the stubbles of white growth on my face fall from my electric razor when I shave. Not too many years ago if I went a few days without shaving those hairs made me look manly, but now after a few days it looks like I have a face full of lint!

Believe me when I say that I am not okay with that! But even though I am not I still refuse to succumb to using dyes, or creams or other treatments to hide the lines to fool others into believing I am younger than I am. Therefore, as I have done most of my life I will soldier forward and try to make the most of my situation by confessing that I have become a senior citizen. I had hoped that when this time came it would be better than it is but here I am, in a world that moves faster than I can but in one that still hasn't found a way to ignore me. It might have if I had allowed it to but I'm just not ready for that yet. I try to stay relevant in it by the homework I keep cranking out; blogs, books and an internet radio program that I think is quite unique. I call it "Talk Radio with Music" and by relying on my knowledge of mass communication and experience of living a life that had me doing that for many decades to make a living I have managed to cultivate a small following of people who really get what I am after! That is to hang on for a little while longer to who I have always been without feeling any need to reinvent myself just to fit in, regardless of those lines in my face and the date of my birth shown on my driver's license.  

My radio program that is heard at night around the world is an extension of the things I write about; I crafted it from from the theme of one man's opinions and I compliment it with the music I have played and listened to all my life. It can be described as an oldies channel but that isn't how I see it; the music is old, in fact some of it is older than me but the music is really just a soundtrack playing in the background of some live play that features a cast of one and sometimes a special guest playing the role a character who validates the rest of the story. To do these things requires using the most important muscle I have left, the one that hasn't weakened yet and instead gets stronger with each passing year; my brain. There aren't any lines up there and no one can see its real age but they can know what it is even if they never look at me. That is what I have left and when it goes everyone will know because everything I keep doing to hold my place in line will stop. When that happens there will be more lines in my face than there are now and every time I see a new one I am reminded of the things that are less and less easy to embrace. 

That photo is obviously a selfie but if it weren't I wouldn't have one to display. No one wants to take my picture anymore and I cannot blame them because I am not that interesting and the things I do have no mass appeal. It is a selfie and one that was easy to produce because the computer I am typing on now has a built-in camera. All I need to do is sit right where I am and click a button; it catches exactly what I am doing without much effort on my part and without assistance from anyone else.

The only logical explanation for anyone to take a selfie and let others see it is that if we don't capture these moments now then it is possible there never will be a record of what we really look like in the present moment. That is unless we pester someone to take our picture or pay someone to. Or, unless we do something amazing or at least worthy of someone else wanting a record of a particular moment. But that isn't who I am, that was a long time ago, back when those lines now seen in my face had not yet formed, back before I earned them. So I look at them philosophically; yes my face looks old but because I am I have something that tighter faces don't, a mind that probably understands more things and the wisdom I need to face each new challenge. There is not a lot of joy in getting older but it is easier to do when we understand more about it. I paid for these lines so I guess I will celebrate them even though the celebration won't be much fun. To try to sell anyone on the belief that they are just lines would be foolish, but for others to know that I earned them is an admission of acceptance from me as well as them. All I can hope for is that I am not judged only by how I look because I still have a few things to do. What other reason could there be for those lines or for me to have lived this long?