This past week, I turned 52 years old. I don’t feel 52 years old. If anything, I feel like I’m 30. Many would say that I act 12, and they would be correct. But there are times where you start to feel aging hit you.
That random spike in your ankle that shows up right after you get out of bed. Taking a mid-day nap has become a little more frequent. Occasionally (maybe more than occasionally) forgetting why you walked into a room. These are all still very infrequent events, but you do notice them and start to think, “maybe this is the start of me getting old.”
“Old,” to me, is infirmed. It is needing help to walk up a flight of stairs or tell a dad joke unironically. By this definition, my parents are old. But if you ask them, they’ll deny it. And I get that. It’s a malleable scale of definition. You see, if you’re labeled “old” then you’re just a stone’s throw from being labeled “too old” and therefore irrelevant. Nothing about my parents is irrelevant.
There’s been a lot of talk since the presidential debate about what is “too old” for the job of president. In the modern day, it would be hard to think that Franklin Roosevelt, confined to a wheelchair due to polio, would’ve kept up with the rigors of the role of president. But even a young man like John Kennedy, who had major back problems and required suspicious medications to treat his chronic pain, was healthy enough to be president.
Donald Trump is 78 and Joe Biden is 81. By any measure, both are “old.” Whether they are “too old” remains to be seen, but Biden’s performance at the debate has certainly given many people pause. Little things are the slippery slope that aging moves by. Going into a room and forgetting what you went there for turns into zoning out in a meeting, or needing a midday nap… or two.
The easy answer is that being “too” old is like pornography, you know it when you see it. Although, now I realize that you have an image of too old pornography in your head right now and I apologize for that. But that’s not the whole story, obviously. Age is just a number and if you are able to pass your cognitive and physical requirements, you’re able to do whatever you want.
That doesn’t mean that I, at age 52, will be challenging Ivan Foley to a foot race down Main Street anytime soon. (Although I’d obviously win.) It just means that I could if I wanted to. It does make me wonder if I’ve done some things for the last time in my life. I remember going to the doctor a while back about a pain in my shoulder. It isn’t my shoulder that I use to throw a baseball, for instance, and it doesn’t hurt when I write. It just hurts occasionally when I lift it above my head. “Well, we could do surgery, or, you could just not raise it above your head.” The doctor smiled when he said it. That seemed like a great alternative to me.
Now, how old is too old to be president? Well, I honestly have no idea. I know the physical and mental toll on someone is great. If you look at pictures of how presidents have aged both before and after their presidencies, it is stark and noticeable. But if you’re wanting a line drawn, I can’t do it for you.
I do think we’ve seen some cognitive problems with both the candidates running. One is a loud mouth, fly off the handle, narcissist – and the other needs a nap occasionally. Neither are good if you’re in negotiations about starting a war. And things aren’t exactly calm out there right now.
In the meantime, I’d recommend not lifting your head above your shoulder and see if that helps you at your next debate. I’m off to take a nap.
(Get nap talk and more from Chris Kamler on Twitter, where you’ll find him pontificating as @TheFakeNed)
