Judge much?

2015.02.19_Judge much?_A MINI RANT

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. “

Albert Einstein

Last Tuesday night Dana and I had an early dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse – where we were is a detail that is probably irrelevant to the rant, but I am leaving it in anyway – as usual, we sat at the bar, and this man immediately sat down next to me, even though the bar was almost empty when we came in. I had seen him getting out of his car and rushing to the door as we were going in – he seemed a personable enough guy, but I was not there to make new friends, I had not seen Dana in months, and we had a lot of catching up to do. I was aware however, that he was saying something about us to another man who was standing next to him at the bar, because right from the get-go his voice was many decibels higher than everyone else at the bar. It could have been that the other man thought we should move down, because we were sitting at either side of a corner so we could talk, and there was an empty seat next to Dana. But nobody asked us to move, so we carried on. Well Mr. Personable, who was sitting by himself, kept making pretty loud comments to seemingly nobody, and I managed, for the most part, to ignore him. So we ordered, drank, talked, ate, drank some more, and he just pretty much ate and talked to nobody in particular.

Now let me fill you in on a little tidbit that I should have probably mentioned at the beginning, and anyone who has ever been to Naples in February can vouch for – during ‘season’ the age demographic here is roughly between 75-105, I am a youngster here at 67 years old.  In Longhorn Steakhouse, around 5:00 it’s pretty much wall-to-wall old people!

Any chain restaurant or happy hour is like a magnet for the ‘Q-tips’ and ‘blue-hairs’ – and of course that’s particularly  funny coming from me, considering that I fall into that category myself.

For the most part I pretty much had my back turned to him because I was talking to Dana, but I could hear him throwing out offhand snide comments about several of the people around the bar who were not sitting there grinning like a Cheshire cat. When the bartender was taking our plates away, I heard him say very loudly “why do old people always look so miserable”. Well - I have a theory about that, so naturally I responded with my dissertation on how when I was a kid I used to look at all old men and think they looked grumpy all the time, like Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace – a curmudgeon, the guy who won’t give you your ball back if it goes into his yard. When I was in my early 50’s, my friend Cathie and I were working at Hertz one day, and some customer came up and started saying ‘smile – you look miserable – it can’t be that bad; and all the other BS comments people make when you are wearing what I like to call your ‘computer face’. You know the one I’m talking about, you are probably sporting one right now – oops, no, I made you smile a little bit there didn’t I – it is basically the relaxed face that we all have when we are not talking or smiling or laughing. In this case we were concentrating on the computer screen in front of us, which was about 90% of our job description.

But as I got older, I realized that as you age, your face starts to slide down until it pools up around your neck. As your face starts to look more and more like an avalanche site, it pulls your eyelids down so you look like you’re squinting – hell, you probably are squinting because you are old and you can’t see so great. Then it starts dragging the corners of your mouth down, and you have a perpetual scowl on your face.  It gets worse; your boobs slide down to your stomach, and nothing short of some kind of boot-camp, exercise, reality show with a strict no wine, no chocolate, no cupcakes, raw veggies only diet program will ever make it go away – now that REALLY sucks. But – I digress (again) – so basically my theory is that as people age they just look miserable, doesn’t mean that they are. Dana, on the other hand piped up with “maybe they are in pain”. And that got me thinking – why are people always so quick to judge? I am not a religious person, I believe in God and talk to him/her every single day of my life; I would describe my religious practices as more of a Buddhist/Hindu/Wicca kind of thing, but even I know Matthew 7:1.

Who are we to judge another person? We have no idea what is going on in their lives. The octogenarian hippie with the pony tail could have just been diagnosed with cancer. The lady at the end of the bar looking like Cruella deVil about to pitch a fit could have just lost her husband. Everybody has a story and it really isn't anybody’s business what it is.

And as we get older that list of reasons for scowling gets longer and longer. As I said to Mr. Persistent, “right now, right this minute is probably as good as it gets for most of us”. And, for most of us, it is true. At some point you realize that all these little things that pop up from out of nowhere, like tinnitus, hearing loss, hair loss, ED, vaginal dryness, teeth falling out, etc., etc., etc. -  you get the picture - are NOT going to go away, some of them you can control, and some of them you cannot.  As soon as you fix one thing, another one breaks. And one day, you are going to realize that you have already hit your peak, the old ‘Over the Hill’ saying is true, metaphorically and literally, and you have started the downward slide into oblivion.  

Personally I was doing just fine until 2007 when I turned 60 and lost my job within a month of each other. And the whole job loss/unemployed for two years thing is a whole ‘nuther subject, I only bring it up because it greatly added to my stress level and consequently, I went from ‘hot’ to hideous in a matter of a few months.

I got the distinct impression that Mr. Obnoxious thought I was rude for not acknowledging him every time he spoke to his imaginary audience. This guy even announced to the world what his total bill was “$31.79 not bad for…” yada, yada, yada, as if somebody cares.  

I feel like a complete hypocrite for criticizing him for criticizing other people, but that is not the point I was trying to make – we should not be going around assuming that just because our lives are perfectly wonderful all the time that everybody else has had the same experience. If somebody, especially the elderly, doesn’t have a smile on their face there is probably a damned good reason for it!

And as I get older, I realize the elderly have way more reasons to not be smiling than most – apart from all the health issues, you could very well outlive all of your friends, relatives, and money. And could be stuck all alone in some miserable hell-hole of an assisted living facility. For me, the prospect of living another 20 years, at the rate I’m going, is more terrifying than dying at this point. Even though I have come a long way from where I was 6 years ago when I had lost everything and just wanted to walk off the end of the pier, I really don’t relish the idea of what will happen when I can no longer work – or when my house gets torn down. Then what?

So I don’t really know how to end this sucker, apart from to say “Judge not lest ye be judged”, show some compassion and for God’s sake never say to somebody “Smile – it can’t be that bad”, because it really, really can!

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 Namaste