Over Thirty

Once you pass thirty, various physical ailments gradually start to appear. It's like a machine that, while still within its service life, begins to require replacement of filters, batteries, and so on.

When I was working at Intel, one morning I woke up with my left eye incredibly red and tearing up from the pain. "Could a spider have bitten my eye?" I wondered, completely perplexed. Fortunately, my eye recovered after a few hours. The eye doctor said there was nothing wrong with my eye; the only thing wrong was my imagination that spiders could bite eyes. In any case, it was probably just the air being too dry. "Then why was only my left eye red?" I was still puzzled. It happened once or twice more, and I decided to stop wearing an eye mask or burying my head in the blanket to block the sun, thinking it might have been caused by heavy objects pressing on my eyes. Dry eyes didn't happen again afterward. It wasn't until a few years later, after moving to the Bay Area, that this "machine" of my left eye broke down again.

The first time the machine breaks down, maybe a couple of kicks will get it working again, but if the underlying problem isn't solved, issues will eventually resurface. After I started working at Google, my left eye started to feel very dry, possibly because of the long hours of coding. Later, the situation began to worsen. In the morning even before working, my left eye would be very dry, and for a good part of the morning, I couldn't even open it. Eventually, it got even worse; I would wake up in the middle of the night because my eye was too painful. It felt like a ghost was poking my eye in the middle of the night, or like playing a staring contest with a ghost. After waking up, my eyes would be in tears.

At its worst, I would be woken up several times in pain, couldn't sleep well at night, and after getting up, I couldn't open my eye, spending the whole day with just one eye open. The doctor examined it and concluded that it was insufficient tear production in my left eye. I started using eye drops every day. At the beginning of the treatment, I had to tape my eyelids shut while sleeping to ensure they were completely closed and not a single tear could evaporate. Now it's slightly better, and I no longer need the tape, but I still avoid sleeping on my side; for some reason, side sleeping easily leads to dry eyes.

Besides my eyes, my lower back has also become quite fragile. If I'm even slightly rough with it, it takes several days to recover. For example, hunching over the computer all day or lounging on the sofa watching dramas; this type of momentary pleasure usually leads to two weeks of back pain. Now, whenever I'm sitting, I keep my back straight and sit upright, as if I'm listening to a teacher lecturing.

Now about my internal organs. In Taiwan it is usually believed that engineers have the weakest livers due to lack of sleeping. Fortunately, my liver is so far healthy; there haven't been any major problems. My stomach is the one that worries me. One morning, my stomach started churning non-stop, making loud noises. I thought it was hunger pangs, so I quickly ate a bowl of instant noodles. But after digesting the noodles, my stomach started churning again. It was especially uncomfortable when sleeping; I would often wake up feeling "hungry" and could only fall asleep after my stomach calmed down. "Could this be how middle-aged man gain weight?" I wondered. The doctor diagnosed it as excessive stomach acid. He prescribed some medication and advised me to drink less coffee and coke, and to avoid drinking alcohol on weekends or having too much stress at work. Hmm, basically, all the things I usually do.

When I complained to my colleagues, I realized that most colleagues over 30 had some similar health issues just like me. We showed sympathy for each other, lamenting the good old days of our youth. Thinking about how we'll be welcoming a batch of energetic and healthy interns during the summer, I can already feel my lower back starting to ache again.