Age is just a number
(A real, actual number that just goes up. Really fast.)
I am at the age now that when someone asks me how old I am, I have to think for a minute, even do math. I just don’t give it a lot of thought. I usually answer them with a question: Do you want my outer age or my inner age?
My outer age is the one on my driver’s license. It’s the number that keeps track of my time here using clocks and calendars, all of which are manmade devices to control what is ultimately uncontrollable. My inner age is more important. It’s how old I feel on the inside, and that number has been stuck at 19 since I was, well, 19.
My left knee feels about 45, and my lower back is basically however old Ed Asner was when he was on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” That’s right, my back is Lou Grant. But inside, I’m 19. 1
Birthdays are weird anyway, if you ask me, especially as an adult. They’re great when we’re kids, I guess, sitting at the head of the table, little narcissists that we are, surrounded by cake and ice cream and presents, every-one singing at us. Kids love that kind of thing. But most adults feel silly in that scenario. And every adult I know hates to be sung at. 2
I’m at an age now that, I must admit, I once saw with dread. I say that with embarrassment now. As a young man, I always felt like I was a bit more enlightened than most. I memorized Longfellow and passages of Shakespeare. When I watched “The Brady Bunch,” I wasn’t just watching a sitcom. I saw nuanced, metaphorical layers addressing the human condition. 3
So when an old person told me that life was short, I believed them. Who would know better than they? But still, I ran from the notion that I would get old one day. I would see the aging, their stooped over bodies, the gray hair and wrinkled faces, and I would react like so many in my age group: with polite dismissal. I would push it all from my mind and pretend it wasn’t ever going to happen to me. And many will argue that is precisely what a young person needs to do: Live! Run! Take it all in!
There were just so many things our youthful eyes could not see rightly, blinded as we were by the superficial and skin-deep. It was years before I could let go of the shell that meant so little and embrace the interior that meant so much.
When I was a boy and walked past an old person with a cane, I saw immobility. What I didn’t see was their contentment, their sense of accomplishment, their legacy. We see the cane, but we don’t see the mileage or the injuries that led to the cane until we are much older ourselves, and we notice our own injuries, our own scars, leaving their more obvious traces.
Artwork © 2025 by Antsy McClain. All Rights Reserved. Unhitched.com
Mark Twain famously said, “Don’t begrudge getting older; it’s a privilege denied to many.” But my favorite quote about aging is from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.” There is a reason why all my guitar player friends, as soon as they can, buy the oldest, coolest vintage guitar they can afford.
The wood has dried, making the tone deeper, more mellow. There is no comparison between a brand new guitar and one that has been played — and loved — for years. The older, the better. And it’s true with all things that make music: guitars, fiddles, pianos, even people.
There is a man here in Wilson County I used to see all the time as I would head out on my morning errands. He was older than me by 20 years, it seemed. He was a runner, very fit, lean and sinewy. His pace was slow and deliberate, wisely making minimum joint impact. One summer morning I passed him, offered the customary Wilson County Wave and saw the words on his T-shirt, words I will never forget: EVERYTHING HURTS.
I laughed, but as I pulled onto my street, the humor morphed into a deep-seated respect. Everything hurt, but there he was, out there doing it anyway. A great lesson. Words to live by. I never met him, and we never spoke. I only saw him running on the sidewalk in my neighborhood as I drove by, but it surprises me how often I think about that man and his shirt. I once thought about buying a similar shirt myself but quickly dismissed the idea because it smacked of stolen valor. I hadn’t earned it. Not like him, and I realized I could no more wear that shirt than I could don a Marines uniform.
But I woke up yesterday with an aching left knee and adjoining IT band. The night before, all I did was sit cross-legged in a rocking chair with a cocktail in my hand, watching TV with my girlfriend, Michelle. I hadn’t been on a treadmill, hadn’t exercised, hadn’t even climbed any steps. I haven’t been upstairs in weeks. I sat. In a rocking chair. In my robe and slippers. There was absolutely no reason for my knee to be hurting, but there we have it.
Lucky for me, Michelle is a licensed massage therapist and knew exactly what to do, so I was right as rain within a few minutes, but I now have to admit to myself that I woke up injured — after sleeping … in a bed … for eight hours.
This kind of realization can be a real slam to the ego of my inner 19-year-old. And he was a bit depressed that morning, so Michelle and I took him out for a nice pancake breakfast, and he seems fine now.
Listen to Antsy McClain’s song, “Picking Up Speed (When You’re Over the Hill),” here:
Antsy McClain is a Nashville-adjacent singer-songwriter, author and graphic artist who feels like he’s 19. Go to unhitched.com for his books, music and events. Use this QR code to download “Picking Up Speed” FREE to readers of The Tennessee Magazine. He wrote it years ago but relates to it more now.
