Old Enough

Old Enough

Recently – and I love that word because of its vaguery – I mustered up enough bravado to dig deep into the often frightful and always convoluted depths of my mind. While I was peeling back the layers of that gray onion – fifty shades of gray by now, I’m sure – I had an epiphany -or what used to be called by us ordinary folk “a eureka moment”. 

It is from that moment of enlightenment that I now draw upon to regale you with this story of the wonders and the horrors and the incomprehensibility of human thought.

As I peeled back those layers I became aware – once again – of OE Moments. OE’s are known to the layman as “Old Enough” moments and all of us whose lives have spanned more than enough decades will know what I mean.

Think back to your tricycle era. Back to a time when your time upon this spinning globe was spent as a toddler, riding your red tricycle up on down the little walkway in front of your house. You were not Old Enough to ride on the real sidewalk – you were restricted to riding back and forth on the little path that spanned the distance between the driveway and the front door of your house.

Soon you were Old Enough to go to school. You’d better get used to it because you had a long way to go. You tortured your parents with band concerts, school plays, and selling candy bars for your school fundraisers. You were Old Enough to bring in some cash for your cash-strapped school.

Before you knew it, the world had made several more journeys around the sun, and you were wearing a funny hat and blowing out seven candles on your birthday cake and you were Old Enough to ride a two-wheeler with training wheels. And you were allowed to ride it on the sidewalk but not passed the Miller’s house on the left or passed the Skittlemeyer’s house on the right. And be sure not to ride on Jeremiah Dootleby’s grass or you won’t see any more Old Enoughs.

And it wasn’t long before you ditched the training wheels. You were Old Enough to ride a two-wheeler all the way around the block.

… peeling back the layers of the gray onion…

Before you knew it you were Old Enough – and tall enough- to ride the Ferris wheel and the roller-coasters at the local amusement park. 

Soon you were Old Enough to spend the night at your friend’s house where you thought you were old enough to go through your friend’s dad’s girlie magazines. Who said they weren’t educational?

And before y0u knew it you were a freshman in high school and almost Old Enough for your first date. All you need was a girl who liked your pimply face well enough to go out with you. Old Enough to date and Old Enough for pimples.

Soon you reached a monumental milestone. You were Old Enough to drive.  Then you were Old Enough for proms. Then you were Old Enough for college.

Off to college you went – where you were Old Enough to vote but you weren’t Old Enough to drink but you did it anyway because – well – everyone else was doing it. And then you graduated college and you Old Enough to leave the nest and set out on your own. You came a long way from the tricycle days.

Then you realized you are Old Enough for almost anything.

You spend most of your life in this phase – Old Enough for almost anything. Years pass, decades pass and one day it hits you on the head like bird droppings…

You are OLD ENOUGH for anything. And I know this because I am at that age. I’m Old Enough for anything and no one would be shocked if I dropped off  – kicked the bucket – or shuffled off this mortal coil…

I’m Old Enough for anything now. I’m Old Enough that no one would say “oh, poor soul, he was taken before his time”, or “oh he was too young to die”.

I can officially say I’m truly Old Enough for anything, although there are a good many things I’m too old to do. 

But I am Old Enough to:

Take a dirt nap

Push up daisies

Be called “home”

Pass away

Breathe my last

Meet my maker

and any or all of the other euphemisms we use for death.

It’s not that I plan on doing any of the above. I would like to stay on the right side of the grass for quite a while longer. 

When you feel like you want to cry the best thing you can do is laugh– or at least smile.

I don’t have a death wish, I just peeled back the old gray onion too far and saw life as it is – a series of OEs – Old Enoughs. Finally, you get to be Old Enough to do anything and everything, but you’re only physically capable of doing about half of them.

And as if to prove to you that life’s not fair… the one thing you never EVER wanted to be Old Enough for follows you around like a shadow.

What are you going to do? How many people do you know who left this Earth alive — not counting astronauts.

Now that I’ve peeled back all of the layers of that old gray onion… let me get my tongue out of my cheek.