I’m 27 now. A rough 27. An old 27. A ridden hard and put away wet 27. To anybody thinking about getting older, I don’t recommend it.

My body feels different. I don’t think i’m growing up anymore. I think i’m dying instead. Slowly, to be sure, but still, it’s upsetting. I thought that the final decline didn’t begin until well past 50. It turns out that is not the case.

The signs are subtle, but they’re there. They’re mostly things other people would never even notice, since I still look…alright. I sleep less now though. Not because I have things to do, I just wake up and stare bleakly into space for extended periods of time. On the lucky few occassions when i’m actually able to sleep, I usually have to get up to piss. Sometimes I have to get up twice. They’re not even good pees either, they’re just a squirt, a trickle, three dribbles, a puff of dust, and a couple more drips after I pull my underwear back up for good measure. I remember in elementary school I could stand with my back against the wall and shoot a high pressure stream of cinnamon scented piss with laserlike precision thirty feet across the bathroom and carve my name into the surface of a urinal cake without splashing. Arial font, size 8. I didn’t even have to arc it. Now that i’m 27, my urine is more a foul smelling mist that insists on going everywhere except into the toilet bowl than actual piss. I’m not even certain it can technically be categorized as a liquid anymore.

My shits on the other hand…those can definitely be categorized as liquids. That’s new. In my youth you could build cabins out of my turd logs. Sometimes the Amish did. Now if I drop a couple of rabbit pellets I feel like a success. Bloody Diarrhea, that’s my new status quo. If this is what comes out of my body at 27, what the hell will I be producing at 72?

Excrement isn’t the only thing coming out of my body these days. There’s also the hair. Basically, from my eyes down, i’m a pube. There’s no getting around it. My old man pelt is so lustrous that whenever I go outside without a shirt on, Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot film crew starts following me around. Do you know the most disturbing part of all this? (to me) (you might still be worrying about the blood in my stool) My hair is turning grey. Not just my head hair, I can live with being a silver fox. Oh no. My pubes are turning grey too. That’s pretty much the nail in the coffin for sleeping with sassy young college aged chicks ever again, now isn’t it? Not that I was ever going to get the opportunity to sleep with sassy young college aged chicks ever again anyway, but now I really have to admit it to myself. It’s devastating.

I also didn’t expect being an adult to hurt so much. I hurt…everywhere. All the time. My eyes hurt. My insides hurt. My joints hurt. It hurts to eat food. It hurts to move. It hurts to stay still. If i’m being honest with myself, I shouldn’t be surprised by this. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of my body. It’s definitely been more abused than your average 27 year old meat sack.

10 years of competitive football, endless fighting, rock climbing, stress at work, a newly sedentary lifestyle, 8 million bottles of cheap whiskey, and my strange penchant for getting hit by vans while on my motorcycle have all contributed to creating the enfeebled hot mess I frown at in the mirror every day.

Has it been worth it?

I’ll let you know when i’m 72.