The Age of Never

The Aztec’s called it, “the age of never”. Reaching a time in life when everything seems to take more effort. That hill was never so high, the walk to town was never so long, the days were never so long, the years were never so short.

I figure for most of us, the age of never hits around 45. I recall in my early twenties when I stayed out till 4a.m., came home, napped, showered and was at the hospital by 7a.m. shift. I couldn’t do that today whether you offered me a million dollars or held a gun to my head. I have reached the age of never. Moreover I have reached an age the Aztecs never even thought of, I call it, the age of “are you outta your mind?”

You’re still in the age of never if you can be out till ten at night, get to bed by midnight, and still get up at six. You have crossed over into the age of Are you outta your mind? if you have to take a nap to be out till ten p.m., get in bed by midnight, but can’t get to sleep until three a.m. because you made the mistake of thinking about money when you went to bed.

Once you’ve reached the age of Are you outta your mind? you want to be home and in your jammies by six p.m., no matter what is offered. You’ve been to enough fun or boring parties in your life, you’ve had enough hangovers, you’ve awakened with enough strange people to know you’ve experinced all that the night life has to offer and you can now revisit memories and get the same emotional highs without the risk of spending the rent money, getting lost on the way home, or worrying about STD’s.

The biggest marker to tell you when you’ve reached the age of Are you outta your mind? is the realizing the danger of sitting down at the wrong time.

If you are planning to go out to an event one evening and you and your hubby nap in the afternoon to store up energy for the evening, you have the best chance of making it out the door if you remember the cardinal rule - once the ‘getting ready’ process has begun, do not sit down FOR ANY REASON!

If one of you is ready ahead of time, usually the man, remind him to stand by the door and nag you to hurry up, or get in the car and honk the horn, anything but sit down.

However, if you are one of those women who can easily commit to the event when first asked, but lose your momentum, and then you’d rather just send a check for the cause, or wait for the movie on dvd, then setting your husband up to sit down to wait for you is a perfect out. As soon as you hear him call out, “I’m just gonna check the scores,” and you hear SportsCenter come on, you are home free.

Walk into the living room in the middle of SportsCenter reviewing highlights of something. Sit down quietly next to him so that he knows that you are ready, but you will wait until he sees the highlights, and then, ever so slowly, tilt your head back, slowly close your eyes. He’ll glance over and think he can watch a little more sports while you rest your eyes. Now let your body relax and don’t notice he has put the couch throw over your legs and is trying to sneak a pillow behind your head. He never wanted to go anywhere in the first place. But you insisted, and you couldn’t change your mind after he gassed up and cleaned out the car. So all you had to do to get out of what would have been an exhausting night, is to have one of you sit down. Before you know it, you’re the best dressed couple on Shelter Island sleeping through CSI: Miami.