THE
PATH OF LIFE
By Bret Burquest
August 10 is my birthday. I will accept congratulations,
cash or wool socks.
I'm now at an age when birthdays are no longer exciting.
It's a lot like Groundhog Day – it's meaningless to the rest of the world,
except to the groundhog and those who gather around to make a big deal out of
it. It's the one day of the year to remind me that time is moving too fast and
I'm moving too slow.
While everyone follows a different path in life, there seems
to be a general pattern.
Age 1-3 – You're a mass of human jelly trying to walk across
the room without falling on your face.
Age 4-5 – You’re a helpless squirt being cared for by
flawless parents who love and protect you.
Age 6-12 – You struggle through grade school, making friends
and dodging bullies. Somewhere along the line you discover your parents aren’t
exactly perfect and embarrass you with their mere existence.
Age 13-17 – As a teen-ager, you stumble into your niche as
one of the in-crowd or a jock or a nerd or a greaser or a
nobody. No matter which category you fall into you’re an outcast but you
don’t actually realize it unless you’re a nobody. You
become rebellious of authority and change your hairstyle accordingly.
Age 18-20 – If you’re lucky, you go on to college and party
for four years. If not, you marry your high school sweetheart and begin a life
of quiet desperation involving employment, raising a family and maintaining a
lawn.
Age 21 – You are now of legal age to consume alcohol, so you
discard your fake ID’s.
Age 22-29 – You get a job that’s much less exciting than
expected and try real hard not to go insane spending five days a week working
for some lame idiot. You don’t think much about the future, except to fantasize
about winning the lottery or writing a novel or sailing around the world or
becoming a movie star.
Age 30 – Your first real zero year.
You sense you’re in a rut and consider doing something drastic, like switch
jobs or switch spouses or join the Merchant Marines. Instead, you change your hairstyle.
Age 31-39 – You coast along, fairly optimistic about the
future. You’ve acquired a bit of money by now and perhaps have the house and
automobile you’ve always wanted.
Age 40 – A bad zero year. You
ponder deep thoughts about the meaning of life. Material things seem less
important and you wonder what went wrong so you change your hairstyle
reflecting your contemplative mood.
Age 41-49 – You switch from a fancy car to a practical car.
If you have kids, they are going off on their own to screw up their own lives.
You begin to read self-help books, buy a treadmill and eat more yogurt.
Age 50-59 – You put on a few pounds that are now harder to
take off than when you were younger. You stop eating yogurt and start eating
whatever pleases you the most. The treadmill collects dust in the garage.
Age 60 – Another bad zero year. You have now slipped across
the line to become an old codger. You begin to worry about your health and
change your hairstyle from stylish to whatever is the most comfortable.
Age 61-79 – You have lots of conversations about medical
procedures and read the obituaries daily. Your back goes out more than you do
and you change your hairstyle one last time, just for something exciting to do.
Age 80-99 – You smile more often but don’t know why, call
everyone “Bub” because it’s easy to pronounce, your
favorite exercise is sitting and you now have more hair growing out your ears
than on your head.
Age 100+ -- You live in a strange world of young
whippersnappers who seem to be from a different planet. You spend much of your
time trying to remember things, like your own name and where you put your
teeth.
___________
Quote for the Day – "Age only matters if you're a
bottle of wine or a block of cheese." Bret
___________
***
Bret Burquest is an award-winning
columnist and author of four novels. Contact bret@centurytel.net
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