The only thing that bugs me is the waddle under my chin. My brothers, sister, and mother all had/have the same thing…the flesh hangs loose in a line from the back off my chin down past my adams apple.
The gray hair makes me feel like a silverback. Don’t fuck with me. The image in the mirror; big belly, what little muscle I had gone fat doesn’t bug me so much because there is still less of me than there was. Grey public hair though; ok now that looks old. A reminder that my time is brief.
My neck snaps crackles and pops when I turn my head; rice crispies in my vertebrae.
Going with the goatee was a good idea from my Canadian friends. I look at my aging peers with their full beards; it is hard to look groomed with all your hair is thickening up and getting patchy at the same time. Hair sprouts from my ears; I pinch it tight between my fingernails and pull it out…the same for the occasional rouge eyebrow hair..they seem to find a spot just far enough away from the rest of my eyebrow to make it really easy to find them and yank them out by the roots….though I would like to have big bushy hairy eyebrows…I think it is all the coffee I drink…nerves frayed and jittery…fingers go to pulling out hair or picking my nose.
I wonder when it will stop working… when standing up and walking around will be the day’s adventure..it makes me think of my brother when he had his brain tumor….falling down on the bathroom floor…his body surprising heavy and solid as I helped him onto the toilet.
And George; 80 years old, his body rigid, suppressing his panic as food stopped short in his dysfunctional esophagus…the relief on his face as the food moved on…
And the end of course…my mother’s labored breathing, nothing but breathing….then after the final grasp at life…nothing…gone…mouth open…the body empty and still.
