Getting old sucks

Aging takes a toll, but in the right light it brings its own beauty.

Getting older sucks, and the only reason we put up with it is that there’s not a better choice. And yes we can make life choices that enhance our general health and well being so that as we age we stay active and blah blah blah. But the years still accumulate, experiences leave their mark, and we can no longer deny that there’s no getting out of this alive.

But it’s not all terrible. Along with the rest of us, our brains get older too, becoming more distractible, less inhibited, and with a broader focus. These happen to be the same characteristics found in the brains of highly creative people, and correlate with a “diminished need to please and impress others.” Even better, aging brains have an advantage over young creative brains, in the form of decades of experience to draw upon that makes us better at certain types of solving problems.

Which means that in the slow slide into old age, we are given a joyous gift. The gift of losing that inhibiting self-consciousness and embracing a life of not giving a f*ck about what anyone thinks you should be doing with your time, your voice, your body, your life.

We are given another gift - the awareness of our own mortality. The process of aging is relentless, even when it is well managed. Aging joints, muscles, skin remind us every day that our time on the planet is finite. We face an implacable but uncertain deadline that fuels a new found sense of urgency, makes fear seem pointless.

I intend to celebrate and to  take advantage of this new freedom and focus in coming days, months, years. What’s the worst that can happen? I get a degenerative brain disease for which there is no cure? Been there, done that, easy peasy.

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What is old
More and more the voice in my head says

I feel old.

It’s become an all purpose phrase

Which is a little alarming to be sure

But then it’s also more than a little bit true

Which is even more alarming.

There’s the old I feel when the alarm goes off

Again

In the dark of the morning

Again

I get up 

Again.

So is it fatigue that I feel?

Or is it the memory 

Of all the dark mornings lined up behind me

The weight of memories that makes sitting up hard

Another day added to that long string of days

Stretching into dim memories

Would I feel old if I could not remember feeling young?

There’s the old I feel when my glasses are dirty

And the print is tiny

And why in the hell is it so dark in here?

There’s the old that I feel when I drive my kids crazy

Just by being me

Just being me also drives me crazy

There’s the old that I feel 

At the amount of effort I invest 

In suppressing the old person noises 

That I need to make 

so I can get up off of this couch.

There’s the old that I feel when I realize

That the young people that I work with

Are younger than my kids

And I remember when I was the young one

So impressed with how cool the old people at work could be.

There’s the old that I feel 

When I just don’t care anymore

About anyone else’s opinion

When I just don’t have the energy 

to coddle the privileged 

and the spoiled

There’s the old that I feel when the beauty and wonder of everything

Happens all at once

Right in front of me

And I remember how much time I wasted 

On such a narrow definition

Of beauty

And failed to see the wonders that I created

Every day

There’s the old that I feel

Because I am old and young together

The days collapsing in on themselves, 

The past wants to fill my being

Lightly shuttered beneath my skin

So many threads of self

Some of my memories surprise even me

Who knew that someone so old

Could have done such things?

There’s the old that I feel

When I number the years

The years I have lived it seems

overshadow

the years I have yet to see

The more we live life, 

The more life speeds up

Until we are careening through the fog towards the cliff

There’s the old that I feel when I realize

That I have to keep sprinting towards that cliff

That time - though ever present - is not constant

And it’s not really my friend

But it is my greatest teacher

There’s the old that I feel when

I close my eyes the world is gone

When I open them again, 

The world is created anew.

And I close my eyes again

And the world is gone.