Aging isn’t for the young

Tom and I met when I was 19 and he was 26. Yes, a slight age difference that I have a good time teasing him with. Things like…he could have been my band director, I’m jail bait, I don’t remember the ’70s because I was a wee thing…you get the idea. With few exceptions, age really isn’t an issue anymore.

Aging, however, is a different story. It’s especially noticeable when we come to visit his parents and sleep in the basement bedroom. Now remember, I was a teenager when we met, married a few years later. Young, is my point. Before becoming official, we stayed in separate rooms upstairs, after the wedding we took over the basement. The bedroom down there was Tom’s in high school and has changed absolutely not at all very little.

This is about the bed.

The mother-effing, sized double on a good day, teenaged-Tom’s 35 year old bed.

When we first starting staying down there, some 13 years ago, we’d pop out of bed in the morning, no problem. Over the years, there has been less “pop” and more “snap” and “crackle.” This trip…a good deal of profanity to begin the day. Bad profanity. The kind that might cause a sailor to blush and kick at the floor. Rap stars would ask if I kissed my mother with that mouth. George Carlin would add an eighth word.

Double bed. With two people in it. I am just shy of 5’11” and one hundred *coughingfit* pounds. Tom is 5’10” and one hundred “quit your bitching I weigh more” pounds. This bed sees us coming and would run if it could. It was likely very comfortable at one point; at least, Tom didn’t have a noticeable hump when I met him. But now…the padding is paper-towel thin, the springs are getting more rigid with age (like Republicans! Ba-dum-dum!), and I envy the boys sleeping on the sofa bed.

We vaguely remembered bed discomfort last time we were here, and tossed our bed pillows into the MomVan at the last minute as a precaution.

HA!

Getting up this morning George Carlin gave thanks he was already dead, for the language would have killed him. Sailors ran off for months-long deployments. Rap stars took note, but couldn’t find a rhythmic rhyme for !@#!$#@$^&^& (^#%!$!$@@^#$@!

I cannot turn my head. I cannot nod my head. I cannot drop my head to my chest. Instead of moving my head to look at people, I’m looking over or under my glasses and speaking to colored blurriness. Breathing was optional there for awhile. Ah! I remember this from last time we were here; I spent the better part of a couple days with an ice pack on my upper back and neck.

In the spirit of giving thanks this week, I am extremely thankful for scheduling a massage for this Monday over five weeks ago. In fact, I am so thankful, I would love to hop a time machine to go back in time and kiss myself square on the lips for such scheduling foresight. My poor massage therapist is gonna need the big guns on this disaster.

Ibuprofin coursed through my system, found the problem, and headed off for easier problems, like cold fusion. I did get a nap this afternoon, on the deliciously padded couch. In retrospect I should have slept on an ice pack. I vaguely remember dreams of pain with the background sounds of A kicking Tom’s butt in his first game of Risk.

I have no idea what I’m going to do tonight. The mere thought of sleeping on that bed makes my neck seize up. I may have a few glasses of wine, follow with a big glass of water chaser, and hope that I can see tomorrow morning. Maybe I’ll make up a bed on the pool table.

Tom? He’s a little sore but relatively unscathed. Lucky bastard.

Which leads me to the conclusion that his bed is increasingly jealous of me after so many years of sleeping with Tom solo.

Bitch.