I turned 54 a couple weeks ago. Not really what anyone would call a milestone birthday, like 18, 21, 30 or even 50. Still, it was a memorable day for me.
Not because another birthday had rolled around. But because it seems that in some respects, the aging process has reversed a bit in the last two years. Now, I would like to say that it’s all because I’m in the fresh marine air of Seattle and that coming home is revitalizing me. However, I think that would be something of a lie.
I didn’t even notice this process until February I guess. I had gotten a haircut. When I came home, there was a very straight line of gray running the length of the side of my head, extending from the sideburns to the back. I could have put a ruler to it, it was that straight.
It was something of a mystery to me. On the one side, gray, on the other, fairly dark hair. Not brown, mind you, but a decidedly darker mix of brown and gray. I just call it “brey.”
I had to cogitate about it for a time. Finally, I realized that it was a line of demarcation, one between an old life and a new one. As you know, hair grows kind of slow and it takes a while for it to travel from the follicle in the top of your noggin down the side of your head. It’s a bit like wisteria, only slower.
Mine has a tendency to go out of control at times. The length of my hair is not top of mind for me most of the time, and it usually has to get to a point of no return for me to venture into a barber. Always has, always will.
But back to the line of demarcation. I began to realize that the life I had, whatever that life actually was in Florida, had been pretty hard on me. It had aged me. A lot. I had started to become an old man, bent over and prematurely gray.
Yes, I had gone through what presidents go through in many respects. You know the drill. They come into office looking all dapper and eight years later, they look like Yoda, all hunched over and wrinkly. Perhaps no one in history has aged more than Lincoln. That Civil War thing was really a bummer, I guess.
Civil War. Now there’s an apt description of my life between 2004 and 2009.But this isn’t about a relationship, but about the role stress plays on our lives. In my case, the stress emanated from a bad relationship. But stress can come from a number of places, from the death of a loved one to the loss of a job or inability to pay bills.
We have no idea how much stress affects our bodies. It robs us of our life and it robs us of our youth. This gray line was the marker of my own stress. The darker part was the new growth in the forest. Below it, was old growth – like night and day.
As I said, my hair didn’t magically turn all brown overnight. That’s what hair coloring is for. But people have noticed the difference in the color. Plus, they say I look younger than I did when they first met me or last saw me in the intervening years.
I’m just glad the stress didn’t kill me. If a study could be mounted to study stress, I would think that it would rapidly become the cause of most of our major illnesses and deaths in this country. As my doctor once said, we have created lives for ourselves that we are not equipped to live in.
And yet, we keep piling it on. We over-schedule our days, pack them tight with too much. Then we have a melt down because we can’t get it all done. Do this enough times and we will buy the farm, I tell you. The same is true trying to live in an unhappy life, one you don’t deserve.
The sad part is, in many cases you don’t even know you’re on the edge. You may not even know you’re stressed. That’s because we have been blessed with coping mechanisms. We cope. We don’t even think about un-stressing. We simply cope. And when we can’t cope any longer, our friends or loved ones just tell us to put on our big boy or big girl panties and deal with it.
So we do. The stress doesn’t go away. It continues to eat away at your physical, emotional and mental health, like those scrubbing bubbles in the toilet commercial. The stress festers. Soon, you’re a nervous wreck, or worse, your health has gone to hell.
You think it’s bad DNA or just your luck. It’s not. If stress can age a president 30 years while he is in office like it does, what do you think it does to us?
The good news is, the hair isn’t turning gray as quickly. Better yet, it’s not falling out. The vast majority of stress in my life is gone. If you notice, the pages of RobZerrvations often play the role of therapist. Lucky you, you get to sit in on a session now and then.
But best of all, I’ve learned not to let the little things in life get me down. I never overload my schedule with commitments. I have plenty of “me” time. And I have a job that while stressful, is positive stress, not negative, which is so energizing.
I highly recommend that you look at all the things that are stressing you in your life – a loveless relationship, kids who are ruling the roost instead of you, a harping husband or wife, too much on your plate, secrets that you’re harboring, a job that you hate – whatever it is, and get rid of it as fast a you can. Yes, it will be even more stressful for a time. But eventually, things right themselves again and once you reach the other side, you’ll be amazed at how wonderful you feel.
Stress is a killer. Don’t let it take you down.
In the Emerald City, living in a pretty stress-free world right now,
– Robb