Getting Old in Bunches

Hi and Lois Sunday page, November 17, 1996.

My father introduced me to the concept of “getting old in bunches” when I was in my forties. His theory is exactly how I explained it in this 1996 Sunday page.

People can convince themselves that they remain relatively unchanged for years and years until something happens to alter their self-perception. Throughout my twenties, I felt I was still the same person I was when I graduated from college. After I got married at the age of twenty-nine things started to change but it wasn’t until my first child was born five years later that my life was transformed. I was now responsible for another person and was forced to finally accept my adulthood.

Many things can trigger these realizations. In my case, the premature death of an old college roommate made me aware that I was approaching middle age. Other milestones – my kids graduating from college, my daughter’s wedding, the death of my mother – have all marked the passage of time. It is not too hard to ignore the aging process in your day-to-day life, but impossible to ignore it in the long run. Inevitably, we all get older.

That is why it makes it so easy to admire Trixie. She has yet to experience her first “bunch.”

– Brian Walker