An increase in age and getting older are two different lifestages

When you start to age, that’s different from getting older — at least I differentiate between the two.
Getting older has more plusses than minuses. On the plus side, as you get older, you get your driver’s license. A few years older you can vote. Tack on a couple more years after you’re old enough to vote and you can enjoy an adult beverage, and so on.
With aging, the minuses outnumber the plusses.
The aging minuses can start at any age, I guess. That is probably where the saying, “You’re as young as you feel,” came from.
You can’t stop the getting older process. The numbers just keep adding up. The aging thing, however, you can delay.
Is hair starting to turn gray? Color it. Are your body parts starting to sag? Nip and tuck them.
Is your nighttime performance not what it used to be? Take a blue pill.
Can’t see the small print anymore? Get yourself a pair of cheaters.
Can’t remember where you put your cheaters? Post-it notes help me.
One day you’re hot, the next day you’re cold? You must work at the Star Herald.
Can’t hear the TV? Turn it up.
Can’t hear the wife like you used to? OK, that might be one of the few plusses.
Those are the physical signs of aging, but sometimes it’s the emotional side of the aging ledger that you notice and think about more than you should.
One of those times happened to me recently.
Mary and I, along with our daughter Jenna and her family, were going to carpool to Redwood Falls for our grandson’s First Communion.
Jenna had recently purchased a new vehicle and we were going to all ride in that. I have driven to everything and anything that we have ever attended as a family, but for this trip I was delegated to ride shotgun. I know it was her new vehicle and all. I did kind of enjoy relaxing and taking in the sights along the way, but I couldn’t help the aging feeling creeping into my mind as I sat in the shotgun seat.
At first I thought I was just overreacting. That was until I brought it up at coffee the next week and the oldest guy at coffee, not to mention Tim Connell by name, said he remembered that same feeling when it happened to him.
Now that I have had time to think about this, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll ride shotgun for as long as I can, because a bigger fear is someday they will just leave me home.