Gary Mantell of Plainview: Mostly the same guy, just in an 'older, fraying package'

I’m a mid-era Baby Boomer, married, with two kids, four grandkids and fond memories of four deceased cats, modestly successful in my sham of a career to support an outwardly normal lifestyle. I’m called “mister” or “sir” too often but believe I’m still young enough to carry myself as I did when I was young.

I listen to the same music, though louder…not sure if it’s my hearing or ongoing PTSD issues from my mother screaming to turn down my stereo. I still live in sneakers, T-shirts and jeans. I wear leather jackets and sunglasses and have a decent Air Jordan sneaker collection….a “now and then” won’t reveal much difference. I have most of my teeth and hair, the latter silver and still too long for someone of any age. The freak flag is still flying, just not as high, and being fashionable is irrelevant.

I used to freely offer my opinions but now I mind my own business unless pressed. I used to fight every battle with disregard for consequences but now I pick my spots. So have I matured and mellowed, become ambivalent or am merely burnt out?

I get weird looks, and some people advocate I check in somewhere for maintenance. I’ve always had an off-center sensibility and strange sense of humor, but back then everyone seemed a bit off, with the thinking things would change with age. But years with not much changing is disconcerting to some who are convinced my brain is no longer running with a full charge.

My career has been the bane of my existence despite what it’s provided. I’m now in the grey zone….at an acceptable retirement age but unsure if I have enough to quit and live like a king or merely a court jester. Some friends are retired and others are still going, so being in the middle is odd.

Friends now come in buckets. My oldest friends are from my teens in the Bronx and despite our genetics altered by life, we still relate to each other like a bunch of idiots. My wife has her own baggage carousel of old friends, but they've mostly become peripheral over time. We then have our town friends, all curated by my wife through our kids and other neighborhood people-meeting opportunities. The women get along well with no suburban competition nonsense, and the men are facetious, self-deprecating, humble sociopaths. Good thing women are more social than men.

I used to only worry about myself. But now there is my wife, who I love dearly, and two adult children with a joint vendetta — got married 10 months apart, had daughters eight months and sons seven weeks apart and living way too close to us. We're the innards of an incessant on-demand guilt trip/squeeze play.

We're down to two remaining elderly and infirm parents. Her father, 98, is great except for the 10-minute conversational tape loops, but my mother unfortunately resides somewhere between Mars and 1945. My hips set off metal detectors and my wife has had a couple of assorted scares but all good now…just some occasional scratch and dent stuff.

I assumed I would eventually have some facsimile of what I do have and some things would have to give. It wasn't fear of change, but fear of compromising myself and becoming someone I was expected to be that has had the greatest influence on my psyche. But I'm mostly the same guy, only wrapped in an older, fraying package. The last person you can fool is yourself and I'm confident that's not the case.

Unless a maintenance visit proves otherwise.

Gary Mantell,

Plainview