I’m 81-Years-Old Now And Starting My Second Wave

It’s all about living. But then, it always has been.

So I had a birthday over the weekend and had to retire my claim to fame. I started my checkered career on Medium boasting I was 80-years-old and I still fantasized about sex.

Now, I’m 81 and grateful for it. About the sex? None of your damn business. I got the mileage I wanted out of that headline and now I’m about moving on. Aren’t we all? We are if we want to survive this blankety-blank year.

So much talk about a second wave. People! We’re still in the first one. We haven’t learned our lessons about staying away from each other, wearing masks, and believing the little bugger (the virus) is a thing and not a conspiracy to suit whatever purpose comes to mind.

A hoax to keep that clown out of office? Tell that to the sick and dying in the Amazon, Australia, and Falkland Islands who haven’t even heard of him.

Please. Don’t check your brains at the door. Which, by the way, is what my second wave is all about.

I started my quarantine all buffed and bragging I could do this with one hand tied behind my back, while I did my push-ups against my kitchen counter. And that worked, for almost four months. I never poked my nose out my apartment door. I never had to, thanks to my wonderful neighbors who waited on me hand and foot, and the delivery services that kept me in essentials.

Exercise? You want to see workouts? I developed biceps from hoisting 5-gallon jugs of water over my head a jillion times a day. I was the queen of solo isolating until it hit me one day. Our cases were rising, too many jerks not wearing masks, and I could be doing this for the rest of my limited lifespan.

Fug it, I said. It’s time for me to binge Netflix like the rest of the unemployed world.

Or maybe, I’d realized I had to give up my title. I‘d been the 80-year-old badass working it on Medium. It had a nice sound, 80 years and … fill in the blanks. But 81-years-old? That sounds like a coronavirus statistic. The median age of nursing home residents, the age you’re most likely to contract the virus, the age people forget you ever knew how to boogie or make those Cherries Jubilee that once garnered you a proposal of marriage.

Yeah, I’m 81 now, and it just sounds old instead of sexy and fun to say I’m 80 and pumping iron, or 80 and making bank on Medium, or 80 and thinking about sex.

All those things are still true, but instead of your hero, I’m afraid I might just sound creepy if I continue to admit them. Something about those “big” birthdays gives you licence. I mentioned my birthday on a call and a friend said, it’s not a “big” birthday, right? So I guess unless it’s a year with a 5 or a 0 after it, birthdays aren’t worth mentioning.

Except at my age, and in this year when the virus is snatching people even in their prime, every birthday is a winner. Every turn of the sun is a big event.

But I know the rules of the road. Either I lie about my age and continue to ride my 80-year-old coattails, or I retire the age card. At least in my headlines. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I’ve come out of my funk and realized that whatever my age and whatever the virus is doing, it’s time for my second wave.

I’d been treating my quarantine as a joke, a challenge. Along with the whack on the side of the head from realizing I’m one year closer to my final sleep, this ain’t no joke anymore. This is my life. This realization is the start of my second wave, no matter what the virus and statistics are doing.

I don’t like exercising by myself? TFB (too fucking bad for those of you in the cheap seats). I’m afraid to walk outside in case the virus hits me between the eyes? TFB. I need to plan a walk early in the morning.

My second wave is about figuring out how to use the going-up-hills and walking-fast muscles so they don’t atrophy. I’m tired of my own company? Guess what? A lot of people have been saying that about me long before the virus emerged from its hiding place.

I doubt anyone’s noticed, but when I hit publish on this article, I will have surpassed the number of articles I wrote in June (5 but who’s counting). For someone who’d written every day for longer than any of you were born, that’s the sorry state of my decline during this dark time. I may have held on to my good spirits, but my productivity has been in the terlit, as we used to say back in the Bronx.

So my second wave is about getting back on track, in every which way because this is my life now. And I’m not giving any more of it to the mind-numbing shock of the pandemic.

My birthday present to myself is to prove you can teach an old dog new tricks. See the Bunny videos on TikTok and Instagram if you don’t believe me.

I’m getting caught up on client work this week — a real thing for me, and then I’ll be back to writing every day, whether or not it matters to you.

Because it matters to me. That’s what my second wave is about. My life, what’s left of it, whether I live it inside or out, alone or with peeps, on zoom or in person. Mostly, I will resume it as a writer, because that’s who I am, who I’ve made myself, grateful to be still alive and kicking after all these (81) years.

I’m an editor and writer on Medium with Top Writer status. I’m also an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. Thank you for reading.