Cleaning house for the aged

"I'm going to clean out my closet," I said.

G-Rob replied, "Is that a metaphor?"

After nearly eight years of friendship, this guy knows me way too well.

"Yeah, probably," I said. "But I really am going to clean out my closet."

In the south, we grow kudzu, not because we want to, but because we have no choice. Someone brought it here and now it's going to grow regardless of our wants and whims. Same goes for my closet. It became my closet and now it is going to be messy.

I took three thrash bags with me and filled one with garbage before I reached the floor. I found bills for cell phones I haven't owned in four years, flight coupons for trips I don't remember taking, and a stack of business cards that I never actually carried for fear of being arrested. It all went in the bag. Other stuff sat to the side, like the monogrammed flask (hall full, no less) and the various and sundry items surrounding my career in television and media: three IFBs, two or three reporter notebooks, and countless press passes (including, but not limited to a badge granting me access to John Edwards in 2004, two or three presidential address Secret Service badges for both Bush and Clinton, and one I actually stole from the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London, England).

I filled the second bag with clothes to give away. Five pairs of black dress shoes, two or three pairs of pants, a few shirts, and some giveaway items that I have collected over my years for working for a client.

Finally, I headed to some drawers where I keep underclothes and such. One drawer was so full that I could barely open it. There was a time, see, when I wore a white t-shirt nearly every day under my work clothes. Because of that and the fact that I hate doing laundry (the wife has taken over the duty in the house, only because it won't get done unless she doesn't), I had more than 20 white undershirts. I stacked five of the cleaner ones to the side and prepared to throw the rest away.

As I was about to throw one in the bag, I notice black Sharpie on the collar. I took a closer look and noticed my father's name written in my mother's hand. It was a shirt I'd somehow picked up when my dad was in the hospital and rehab center during and after his three brain surgeries. I rarely consider myself much of a man, but whatever maturity I have started forming around that time in 2003. I retrieved the shirt from the throwaway pile and tucked it back in the drawer.

Cleaning or no, we all need to keep some reminders.

(Upon re-reading the above, it sort of makes it sound like my Dad died. He will tell you that he's doing just fine, thank you. He just should've died. Like three times. Instead, he's playing the best golf of his life and not doing much else that could be considered work. All in all, not so bad for a guy in his 60s.)

***

I see Uncle Ted every couple of months. He speaks his mind. He's like that.

He came over a couple of weeks ago and wasn't in the door 30 seconds before he broke into a chorus of, "Gray, gray, gray, gray!"

I didn't have to ask what he was talking about. I think I muttered something profane and shuffled away to look for my walker.

The aging man's lament is so trite that I dare not repeat it this year. On my birthday last year, I talked about the choice I made. This year, I'm letting the day slide by with little fanfare. I decided to let this happen when I discovered, for the first time ever, I not only look a year older, I feel a year older.

This is not to say I mind. After I get through this awkward old man's adolescence, I'm going to be well on my way to Distinguished. That should be a good time. Of course, if the books tell us anything, it's a short road between being becoming distinguished and having someone feed you your soup. In that case, my wife and kid got me some fantastic German steel knives to mark the occasion that could probably put a quick end to it all.

If no marketing genius has come up with this yet, I think there is probably a great advertising campaign for knives aimed at seniors: "We'll still be sharp when you're not!"

Timeless

Greenville, South Carolina is one of those places you'd never go on a whim. Ten years ago, if you'd asked me to find it on a map, I maybe could've pointed within 400 miles of the Greenville dot. When I describe it to friends from London or Amsterdam or Madrid, I say, "You've heard of Atlanta and Charlotte? It's halfway between those two cities."

Greenville is more than that, though. I always tell people who ask, "I ended up in Greenville by accident and never left." That's basically true. In TV news, when some one offers you a decent job that is better than the one you have, you take it. If that job is in Anchorage, Glendive, or Greenville, you take it. That was what happened with my wife and I. She was offered a job. Then, by virtue of her talent and her employer's desire to prevent me from working for the competition, I was offered a job. We moved, married, bought a house, had a kid, and called Greenville home.

A few of you have been here, either for the wedding or for Bradoween. You've seen bits and pieces of why we stay here. The city is vibrant, the climate is comfortable, and the people are slightly more forward-thinking than the rest of the South.

It was in this environment that we packed up our new family-mover and went to the downtown park along the Reedy River. It is probably the most beautiful place in the city. It's green, flowered, waterfally, and generally among the most comfortable places to spend an afternoon. Yesterday was a pre-St. Pats day Irish festival. Thousands of people were out, drinking Guinness, listening to Irish music, and eating Irishy food. I had the kid, the wife, and this laptop in tow. Sunday is a rough day for me work-wise and I couldn't afford to be without the 'puter. The park has wireless access, so, well, it worked out. As the band played and my kid danced, I climbed about 80 feet up a hill and got online. Where everybody else was holding a beer or their child, I was sitting on a rock with a laptop on my knees.

If you're a frequent laptop user, you know it's uncomfortable to wear a watch and type at the same time. My watch is not an overly expensive one, but I love it just the same. It was a gift from my wife. One night, I'd stuck one of my kid's stickers on the back of it. I do things like that to make me feel closer to my kid when I'm away.

I slipped off my watch and put it at my side while I finished up ten minutes of work that couldn't wait. As I completed the task, the band started playing a good song and I looked down to see my wife. Eighty feet below me, she held my son in the air and spun around in the sunshine. I slapped my laptop shut and ran down the hill.

I dodged my way through the crowd, ignoring the jokes from a poker player I know about whether I was playing poker online in the middle of the park. I threw my laptop in the kid's stroller, grabbed him, and danced like we were in our living room and the whole city couldn't see me acting like the idiot I loved to be. The song ended and I walked my son down to a small tributary of the river so he could get dirty.

Daylight Saving Time had come early and I marveled at how beautiful it was outside at 5pm. Wait, was it really 5pm? I pulled up my left arm to check my watch...the watch I'd left sitting on the hill.

I handed the kid to my wife and ran back up the hill. As I suspected, my watch was gone. I spent ten minutes vainly searching to see if the watch had rolled down the decline or gotten buried in some dirt. Nope. Gone.

For reasons I couldn't fully understand, I got mad, then sad, then generally surly. I wondered how long it took for one of the people on the hill to pick up my watch and put it in their pocket. I wondered what they would think when they looked on the back of it and saw the tiny Christmas tree sticker.

My arm has felt lighter ever since, and my heart conversely heavier. I could go out and buy the same watch today, but it wouldn't mean anything. It was a gift. It was a private symbol of my child's innocence. It meant something to me.

I remember a time in the north of France a couple of years ago when I was sitting beside an exceedingly wealthy man. We were both on laptops and both removed our watches to type. Later, we went to a bar and he realized he'd left his watch behind. He sprinted back to where he'd left it, likely because the watch cost more than I would make in four months. People value watches for different reason, I guess.

The past three months have marked some pretty odd changes in my behavior and personality. Perhaps the most evident change is the length of time it takes me to lose patience for something. For as long as I can remember, I have been the most patient person I know. It took a lot to rattle me. It took a great deal more to make me mad. Recently, the smallest of things have sent me down a path to such insane tilt, I barely know myself. If I'm being honest, it's pretty fucking scary.

I've worked pretty hard to attribute the personality change to something specific. I've looked at my lifestyle, my family, my job, my finances...everything that can affect one's personality. While every one of those areas has seen need for improvement in one way or another, I can't really lay the blame on any one of those things. Even putting them all together leaves me wanting for that one vital missing link to explain what's messing with my head.

Yesterday, as I steamed about the lost/stolen watch and elbowed my way through downtown to our favorite little Mexican joint, I couldn't put my finger on it. It took until just a few minutes ago for me to finally admit it to myself.

I'm scared.

I've spent the past decade putting my all into my job. Although I've had better jobs than most people I know, living a life that is defined by your profession has its drawbacks. What's more, I think a great deal of my purported passion for my jobs has been a way to hide my fear of actually trying to...well, okay...be what my friend Wil calls a capital "W" Writer. There. I said it. Again.

I think I have determined that I'm letting time fly by as fast as I can because I'm afraid if I slow down, I'll realize how little I am actually doing. This afternoon, I watched my kid (just two and half years old) put on an entire play with a couple of dump trucks. There was a plot and everything. It was improv. The kid breaks my heart and I can barely write about him without tearing up.

My wife and I have occasional discussions about how we're becoming more summer than spring chickens. Ten years ago, we had our lives ahead of us and could afford to be bohemian and lazy. Now, it feels like each month slips away a little bit faster. We've managed to succeed on a lot of fronts. We're financially comfortable. We have a beautiful son, a home, a dog, two cars, and very little debt. It is the American Dream...which we managed to accomplish in spite of ourselves.

As much as I want to be mad at whoever is wearing my watch today, I can't help but accept the blame for leaving it sitting there to be stolen. I was trying to balance my obligations to work and family and failing miserably at both. Sometimes I get so caught up in trying to make sure I am doing what I am supposed to do that I leave some of the important things behind.

Acceptance, I'm told, is the first step.

Secrets

There was only one other guy there. He was unkempt. His shirt hung untucked over his gut. The mop on his head hadn't been cut in some time and it was obvious he'd combed it in a way to hide an ever-receding hairline. We looked at each other, but said nothing. There hung in the air an unspoken unease with how we were handling this particular ugly necessity. We were both there to satisfy something that was embarassing. If we actually went through with it, we both knew it would give us a certain amount of pleasure. We also knew that if we did it, we wouldn't want anyone else to know.

I didn't nod at him and he didn't nod at me as we looked at our choices.

***

I turn 33 years old today. As I said to a friend the other day, birthdays have reached a point at which they are no longer exciting, but neither are they all that depressing. Thirty-three, I've come to accept, is not all that old. Sure, my life has changed a lot in the last decade. Sure, I look and feel older than I once did. But, when it comes down to it, barring bus accident or an unfortunate run-in with a billiards gambler and a pool cue, I stand a chance of living for a good long while if I can take care of myself.

"Condolences," my friend said.

***

I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was looking. The other guy left me alone. I knew I'd been standing too close to him. If someone had done the same thing to me in that situation, I would've left, too. I was sure there was some protocol for these situations, but I'd never been there before. I didn't know. At that point, I just wanted to make sure I didn't see anyone I knew.

I feel dirty, I thought.

The wife had sent me out to pick up a few things for our only child and I ended up considering something that, if I actually went through with it, I would never tell my spouse about.

A man's needs change, the rationalizing part of my psyche assured me. It's okay. What happens here, stays here.

***

I saw Tracey over the summer. She's as tall as me and is humble about how beautiful she is. No one who has ever met her, least of all me, can deny that she is one of the most striking and approachable people you will ever meet.

I hadn't seen her in a long time. We'd parted ways under good terms many years before. This summer, she came into town for a mutual friend's funeral. Many of the mourners retired to a bar after the service. Though I knew we were in a crowd, I had to say something to her. After an hour, I walked through the crowd and waited for her to finish a conversation. Finally, she turned to me with a small smile and pulled me into a warm embrace.

The last time I saw her, she had dressed and done her hair differently. In the years that had passed, she'd worked in the big city. Now, she was startlingly cosmopolitan. She told me she was going to work for a boutique PR firm in the city.

I looked different, as well. Five years before, my hair was longer and made-for-TV. I had no facial hair and I weighed 15-20 pounds more.

"You look good," she said. She reached out and fingered beard on my chin. "I love how you're not doing anything with the gray."

***

Vanity is a bitch.

What's weird about it is, back when I was regularly in the hunt, I paid litle attention to my appearance. My hair grew to my shoulders, my weight was directly proportional to the amount I was drinking (a lot), and I would go days without making the acquaintance of a razor. Even when I was still working in television (the time of my life when appearance was pretty important), I didn't take exceptional care of myself. I could've looked better than I did.

Since the kid was born, I've found msyelf inordinately concerned with how I look. Though a wedding ring is welded to my finger and I rarely go to bars where women hang out, I spend a lot more time in front of mirrors. I trim, scrub, and preen. I found a fancy, bald man who knows how to cut my hair and does it with precision (if a little too much time and proximity).

It's all a little sad.

***

This is sad, I admitted to myself. I shouldn't be doing this.

Now alone, I could satisfy this male necessity. It would cost more than I expected, but if I paid in cash, my wife would never know. Ever since Tracey had returned to the city, I couldn't think of anything else. My wife couldn't help. As much as I loved her, she was powerless.

You know, spoke my reasonable side, she'll know. She'll either smell it on you. Or she'll find some sort of CSI-trace-transfer scientific bullshit. She'll know.

I couldn't argue. Chances are, even if no one saw me, even if I paid in cash, even if I was able to be sneaky around my wife, she would figure it out.

Alone, I was forced to make a decision. I wouldn't likely have this chance again any time soon.

I can't believe this, said my rational brain.

And then everything went silent.

***

Later that night, I sat on the couch next to my wife. She looked at me adoringly, like she loved me and would love me regardless.

I broke.

"I have a confession to make," I said.

The look on her face was one of controlled worry. She's put up with a lot in our ten years together. She knows I have a tendency to flirt with the deep end. However, I've never given her any reason to believe I would go where I'd been in the past 24 hours.

"Okay..." she said.

"I spent a little time in the Just For Men aisle at the grocery store today."

My visison was clouded with relief. I'd said it. Now it was out there and I couldn't take it back.

But, the look on her face was more than I could bear and I looked away.

***

In the end, I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to buy Grecian Formula, Just For Men, or any of the other products on the shelf. It wasn't just the embarassment that went along with it. It was the fact that, if I had actually gone ahead with it, I would've be admitting that I'm actually concerned about not only getting old, but looking old.

Some people might suggest that even walking into the aisle is a tacit admission of defeat.

Me? I'm just proud of myself for walking away with what little pride I have left still intact.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to exfoliate.