A Cool Dry Place

Hey everyone,

I find that the older I get, the more I try to preserve myself like a leftover chicken salad.

Initially, I wanted to spend this week writing about how the president centralized the police under his control by declaring a state of emergency and then appointed a national chief over the local police, city by city, to consolidate the forces and control the local citizens. But do we really need another article about Hitler?

Probably not. But the alternatives aren't much better. Between the latest Jefferey Epstein conspiracy, or Taylor Swift launching her next album on a meat head podcast, neither sounds very interesting. But this week, I'll reflect on something else—what's left of my shelf life.

When I was young, I could camp out anywhere there were friends or cute girls, in the worst of conditions. Even a pillow made of stone wouldn't stop me from resting my head on it if I could call it a sleepover, or in later rock band years, describe it as "being on tour". Today, I may as well be sleeping in a me-shaped egg carton, designed to protect my thin outer shell when I'm at rest. When I go to sleep, I'm all but marking the bed with "fragile, this side up" because my hips can't risk a fall or even a little extra blood rushing to my head.

Even temperature control becomes increasingly important as I age. No longer are sweaty quarters with a locker-room smell an acceptable place to store me. I must keep temperatures at levels perfect for red wine and aging geriatric newsletter writers. I get my air conditioning serviced twice the recommended frequency, and I surround the house in hedges to block a gust of wind coming to blow me over. If the path of the elderly colleagues that surround me is any indicator, I'll be adding a special AC unit to every room I sit in, should I continue this life as an ongoing concern. Pretty soon, I'll be living in a refrigerator, adorned in Tupperware-made rigid clothing with an airtight lid to keep me from getting moldy. My furniture will undoubtedly be preserved in plastic wrap, and my only priority besides my own freshness will be maintaining the lawn and finding a paper to read.

What I'm trying to say is, I'm getting old. Despite my good looks and chiseled jaw, I'm not as young as I look. I've managed to delay the onset of compression socks and reading glasses, but time is fast behind me, trying to get its mits on me. I have two grown daughters, I'm obsessed with my lawn, and I lean on the counter with one arm when I unload the dishwasher. Time waits for no one, but it's been stalking me for decades, and it is starting to get impatient.

I'm not a quinquagenarian yet, but if you don't unsubscribe, you'll have one with an unlimited supply of candy in your inbox in issues not far enough off.

Nothing makes you feel older than your progeny leaving home for the last time (or at least one of the last times), to move to another city, another state, or another country. Mine are doing all of the above. Both daughters leave for one more year of graduate school, and then a whole life of their own.

At the end of this week, we sent off one; at the beginning of next week, we will send off the other. Now my wife and I have to make a list of things we could potentially talk about at dinner, to quell her fear that we might run the well dry. There's no spilled milk to clean up, other than my own, of course, and the only people to feed are ourselves. "They come, they eat, they leave," is how they put it in A Bug's Life. The time comes when you wish they could stay long enough for one more meal. Only moments ago, you were feeding them soft foods, wiping their chins with the spoon after each scoop. If we're lucky, they'll be back one day to return the favor.

Raising kids is a big job, and it seems like one of the only investments where all the return goes to someone else. It's one where most of your contributions are taken for granted. Based on what I've read about generational wealth, it's the investment that tends to last the longest, too, even if you get none of it.

The hard part is to watch your significant other give everything she has to make a home, lend a car seat, and put a cookie–and before you know it, a glass of wine–in front of each of her children. Then, to discover that every lost hour of sleep, the aches, and the big scar across her belly, was in service of losing them.

From cleaning up to cleaning out, the job of child rearing seems like it comes with an end. I can tell you from experience, you'll forever be cleaning up after them, but eventually, they say thank you. Wiping chins may not pay the laborer well, but we can only hope that, even after we've lost our minds, or at least our strength, whoever withdraws our investments will let us be around them to appreciate the work we've done.

I'll miss you both, Corinne and Kaija.

That's it for this week.

Remember: The Lorem Ipsum has no offspring, other than you, and your inbox, which we consider an adopted family. As we tell our real kids IRL, please remember to be a good sharer.

Have a great weekend!