It's All Downhill from Here

Dear world,

I am getting old.

I know…that’s a very relative and slightly cruel thing to say. I’m younger than most people. I’m younger than the culturally-defined definition of old. I don’t have white hair. I don’t even have a full time job, or pension, or anniversary of any type worth celebrating.

On the other hand, I am the oldest I have been so far. I am certifiably an adult, and have surpassed that lovely grace period which allowed me to hit up my parents for rent money without guilt. I am in my mid-twenties. And as someone with very little imagination or much thought about the future, it’s all come as a bit of a shock. I’m suddenly Old, with crow’s feet, and smile lines (since when do I smile?), and a sense of my own mortality. Soon I’ll throw out my back and stop running, for the sake of my knees. I’ll stop caring about social norms-

(…Oh god. There are Jehovah’s Witnesses on my front law, and my blinds are open, and maybe if I don’t move they won’t see me….oh, crap, I think they see me. Oh, fuck, please just go away. Why do you keep standing there so awkwardly? What are you writing on your clipboards of religious annoyances? Crap, that’s the doorbell, they know I’m here…

Thank god, they were just political canvassers. Alright. Awkward conversation about Jesus avoided for another day.)

Okay, where were we? Right, old. Me, old.

Old age is coming. It’s there for all of us, looming on the horizon, and we’re all just a broken hip and pop culture reference away from its clutches. It comes on slowly, painfully, gradually, until you wake up one day wearing adult diapers with one of your grandchildren mopping up your drool (at least I think he’s my grandchild…Billy? Billy, is that you?). Today, it’s already started. At the age of twenty-three, my body has begun to deteriorate in a way that will slowly lead to false teeth and talking loudly about what a nickel could buy in my day. Actually, growing up, I could buy no-name soda for 35 cents. And the cent symbol appeared on most keyboards. And there was no internet…See? See how it’s already started?

I think the descent into very old age is hardest on people who see themselves as strong and powerful. You see this in old men who bark orders at nurses - twenty years ago, they were strapping CEOs and heads of their family. They lived in a world of which they were masters. Today, they cannot even control their own bodies and find themselves begging for attention. It’s a power shift which stings with indignities.

For people used to not having much power, the descent seems easier, and almost relaxing. If life has never entirely gone your way, there is less expectation and less disappointment. If life has been hard and painful since you were young, then at least on your deathbed you’ll be used to the feeling. Or so the theory goes.

For me, you’d think there'd be nothing to fear. The standard of care in your average nursing home is actually an improvement over my current living conditions, and no one listens to me much now, anyways. My family never visits, despite the fact that I remember all their names and my face is not yet a gruesome imitation of its former self. I don’t have any money or prestige, so I don’t have much to lose. You’d think I’d look forward to the days of napping and annoying others and the throwing rocks at kids who stray onto my lawn…

But no. Old age terrifies me. And I suppose the reason is simply that, to me, Life is Hard. Even at my present relatively young age, with most of my intellect and body intact, with living friends and freedom and not too much physical pain - Life is quite often just barely bearable. So the thought of adding to the pain, and the wrinkles, and the indignities suffered…it makes it all just seem too much to take. If life, now, seems difficult to take, how can I expect my later years to be anything other than excruciating?

This is why it’s best not to think about such things (a statement which probably should have proceeded this note). And also why it’s a good idea to foster an interest in motorcycles, or scuba diving, or jay walking with your eyes closed while gargling Mercury. Just in case.