A Blink Ago
Is it when, out of the blue, from the corner of our lazy eye, our parents suddenly look so frail and fragile. Like, Old Man Time snuck up, while we briefly 'turned our backs' on them to do our own thing, chase our own dreams -- building our careers, our futures and/or families.
Or is it when they die and we step into the front line?
I am finding getting older rather confusing and perplexing.
I don’t dislike it, or deny it or try to prevent it. Though I try (vainly!) to hide it, in many ways, I rather love it. I love that sense of not caring so much about what people think, that freedom from embarrassment and insecurity and shame. I am more confident, I think I know myself better, therefore I am more comfortable with myself.
But nevertheless, I look in the mirror and am taken aback by the woman I see - can this be me, this 'no more toing-toing' face, fine lines around my eyes and mouth, fillings in my teeth, a tired skin? And where did the person go that I was, careless of risk and waste?
A blink ago, my world was all possibility, doors that I might push open, whereas now it is equally about memory. All the things I've done that I will never do again: trying on my first bra, dance on tippy toes in my ankle-breaking killer-stiletto heels, fall in love for the first time, drink too much, stay up all night engaging in misadventures, leave home…
It's also about crossing a line, and all the things I haven't yet done...
*sigh*
Children have become yardsticks of time passing. For pre-teens, Christmas is way too long to wait for their first handphone, for those approaching their two-decade of existence on this planet, a year is way too long away from those milestones they can’t wait to cross – graduation, entering the workforce, finding that special someone who will displace their parents as their significant other.
Meanwhile, it’s been barely half a year since one parent went off to that faraway land, leaving the other, literally shrinking and stooping at what seems an accelerated rate as each year becomes for her the tiniest shred of time left on earth.
Now here I am, a grey hair in my eyebrow. Where did time go? Is it really true it isn't coming back?
With advances in science, medicine and technology, we are living longer and longer. More than ever we are denying age and death. We want to live longer still, a thousand years, forever.
Where, when and what were the best years of our lives?
What is the alternative to growing older?
posted by percolator | 2:37 PM
1 Comments:
"What is the alternative to growing older?"
There is none. Nothing physical is permanent.
Where there is life, there is death. Obvious enough. Creationist say they have found it - the reason, the meaning.
I had an unforgetable colleague who used to moan very often wrt aging. Whereupon I quite irritated him by saying that growing old is no problem ; only desiring to grow younger is one big one.
Wisdom or delusion it is what we derived from it. This is more important than the length of it.
One may or may not be wiser than one's parents. Only afterwards when you are older that you may appreciate them for what they are worth.
Achievements may not be as important as the means by which one employed to obtained what you have achieved. The rest are mostly societal and cultural norms and to be largely enslaved by them is neither freedom nor astuteness.
Ancient sage and pundits have refered to life as a dream. But only if we can stand apart from this Space Time Continuum. Otherwise it's real enough meantime, while within it.
Easier said than done is the given warning about undue attachments.
Any dispute over this? ;)
~wits0~
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