The Meaning of Gettin Old

I have recently become concerned over aging and the meaning because I am aging fast. I am past midlife which for me is age 40 because average age is generally 80 if one is lucky assuming one is going to live to 100 is a bit pretentious and punishing because who wants to live mummified or as my grandfather use to say defleshing.

The most impacting aspect of aging is that it has arrived much faster than I expected almost as if I cannot stop the clock even if I wanted to.  When I was a child I remember the clock moving too slow and wishing it did now I am trying to slow it down but I can't. I am reminded of it as the gray sideburns have become apparent, the weight which is slower to come down, the diabetes, the aching feet and the lack of attention from women.  Fortunately, I have not bald but if I did, I would not keep the wig as my grandfather use to tell my tio Pocaluz who had a ponytail but was hairless on the top.  Nino Gus would tell him, "straighten your wig you are wearing it upside down". As they aged the elder grandfather laughed at it and the silliness of holding on to being young and looking ridicously.

The men now have all now passed and did so young while Nino Gus died at age 83 in 2005 and as the oldest male nobody is really there to guide just relying on my own wits and defensiveness.  So I spend alot of time observing older men, how they dress, walk, appear, if they look good in shorts with white socks or not even their shoes, sunglasses and what they drive.  I tell myself that is my future and then wonder about sex because the biggest difference with my early 30's is the lack of attention from females.  In my early 30's my sexuality flourished as females showed much more interest than they had in my early 20's and wondered if it was because I did not live in the South Bay area in LA County where White females showed zero interest and I find myself feeling resentment and anger because I knew I was being racialized.  By my early 30's I was living in the east side city of Montebello where Mexican Americans were the majority and I felt I was respected as a man and it did not matter if I was manual labor or professional, I felt wanted by Mexican American females.  However, I took it for granted though and did not appreciate enough the attention I was getting because I was enjoying what I felt women always got which was attention.  I felt that circumstance would continue but to my surprise it did not and began to end around age 37 and it hasn't.

Now as I look at those older men and myself with all the attention going to women and feeling that women are not as interested in the purity of sex plus the real reality that women have always chosen when to have sex aging is difficult for the older men.  Call it a change in biology or the skin defleshing but I understand why older men seek cultures where they are valued even if it cost them money at least money is the great equaliser but that wouldn't seem equal as women benefit more for they get financial and physical pleasure.  Aging is now a way of life, just learning to live with this phase in my life.