The New Normal By Jamie Kirkpatrick

After some serious thought, I’ve come to the sorry conclusion that the new normal, oxymoronic as this may sound, is chaos. I’m not talking about the weather, or the stock market, or the price of eggs, or even politics—I could be, but I’m not—I’m talking about advancing age. Not your age, mind you; my age!

Another conclusion I’ve come to is that the older I get, the younger I think I am. Stay up late and feel good the next day? No problem! Run a marathon? Sure!  Can’t remember why I went out to the kitchen? Never could, so why worry about it now?

This all started a few days ago when my wife looked at me and said, “You’re turning into an old man.” Apparently, she didn’t think I should be wearing my warm, fuzzy slippers when we had company coming over. “Company?” I said. “It’s just Andy and Kirk and they won’t care.” She got huffy, but as far as I was concerned, warm feet were much to be preferred over some spurious sense of fashion.

The next morning, I got to thinking about how this all started. The first step down the rocky road of advancing age occurred last summer when my daughter-in-law was ordering chairs for our annual family gaggle at the beach, and she requested one for an “elderly” person. Me. I’ve been picking that bone with her ever since. However, I must admit that it’s a-heck-of-lot easier to rise from a seat that’s not just three inches above sand level. I’ve given my daughter-in-law a pass on the chair, but please don’t tell her I said that.

So, maybe there was another origin to herself’s “old man” comment. We’ve been watching a lot of the ‘Saturday Night Live Turns 50’ specials lately, so, maybe, that got her thinking about those long-gone, halcyon days when we could stay up late watching the hippest talent NBC had to offer. But the problem with the ‘SNL Turns 50’ theory of celebrating the passing years is that those years were so clearly gone. I couldn’t recognize most of the old SNL talent because so many had been nipped and tucked beyond recognition. And then there was this whole new generation of performers being touted, none of whom I had ever heard of. Bad Bunny? Shaboozey? Whatever happened to Simon and Garfunkel, or The Temptations, or even Dolly Parton? John Belushi and Norm Macdonald? Admit it: the skits were funnier and music was music back then!

But I digress. Back to our little family tiff over the wearing of slippers to a friendly dinner party…

The next day, in an effort to smooth things over, my wife said something that I’m sure she intended would mollify me: “Maybe only the smart die young,” she mused. If that was intended as an olive branch, it had more the effect of a snowball to the face. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. I was in the kitchen at the time but couldn’t remember why. “Nothing,” she said. “Don’t get so touchy, old man!” Our car seemed to be stuck in reverse.

Eventually, all these contretemps began to fade, as they usually do, swept under yonder proverbial lumpy rug, as it were. We got back to loving on each other—not like we did in the old days, mind you, but in the way of couples who have become comfortable in their togetherness. I’ve chalked the spat up to too much winter weather, which of course, brought me back to thinking about those warm, fuzzy slippers and the existential question that goes to the heart of every critical marital conversation: “What do you want for dinner?”

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives in Chestertown. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His most recent novel, “The Tales of Bismuth; Dispatches from Palestine, 1945-1948” explores the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is available on Amazon and in local bookstores.