06.01.11
OLD AGE
It’s funny how no one ever tells the younger generation what it’s like to be old or aging and maybe it’s because we never thought to ask. As my birthday approaches if find I have been pondering the wisdom of growing old.
If I had stopped to ask my parents or grandparents or elderly acquaintances would they have imparted to me the knowledge of the ages; of how our bodies begin to change, how every morning it gets harder and harder to get the joints moving, how no amount of exercising or positive thinking will hold back the effects of time. We humans seem to be more concerned with looking younger or having a young appearance and not so much with what is happening on the inside. More about erasing those wrinkles and lines hence the billions of dollars spent each year on cosmetics and cosmetic surgery. Even I have to admit to giving some consideration to a face lift……..a clear case of denial on my part.
If I had asked would anyone have told me how, hard as you may try, you can’t help those times when a deep sadness sweeps over you like the waves of the sea filling you with a loss for things past, for things that never were and for things that might have been. That you will feel a deep loss for people and things that have passed from this life. The changes that creep up on you ever so slowly that we never even notice until one day it occurs to you that people, particularly the younger folks, have begun to look past you never really looking into your face or eyes. That youthful glow is gone, replaced by dark circles and sagging jowls and maybe you’ve put on a few pounds or a lot of pounds and when you look in the mirror you no longer see you.
Does that all sound a bit maudlin; well maybe so but if you are of a “certain” age and if you are honest with yourself you will admit that at one time or another you have felt these very same things. On the plus side however, there are some advantages to getting older and I don’t mean the senior discount at Denny’s, but the fact that you can finally speak your mind and no one gives a hoot. Either they stand at attentions and listen to what you have to say and believe it has some merit or they just chuck you up to being a crazy old thing and ignore you altogether.
There are however, many other items on the plus side of the ledger. The fact that you are alive to see your grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow up. That you are still surrounded with friends, albiet fewer, but still those who lovingly share the same memories as you, the same times of your life and the same day to day feelings that come with growing older.
So as I approach my another birthday on the senior side of the scale, I count my blessings and I am feeling very grateful that I am here to celebrate yet another year.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ALL US OLD GEEZERS!!
For Folks Like Us…..