The words bleed forth from my lips with such vitriol and contempt on a daily basis. It's true, I am older now than I have ever been (obviously). Other truths are that it takes a lot more work to stay somewhat healthy; my joints and body ache more intensley and for a lt longer than it did before; my memory is so faulty that IT is almost a memory. When I was a boy, teenagers were OLD. When I was a teenager, thirty seemed to be a horrifying transition towards being one of "the Ancient Ones". However, when I hit thirty, it occured to me that eighty is so far off; that MUST be what old looks like. Now that I have accomplished half of eighty, I am starting to see life in a different light. Some of that is due to my life circumstances taking a dramatic shift; but I have to attribute it also to having so many life experiences. Old doesn't mean the same today as it once did.
Yes, effectively, I am old. Why is that a bad thing? What is the alternative? "Live fast; die young; leave a beautiful corpse"? That is a tantalizing panacea when you are living through the horrors of depression; but - it's nice to have made it this far and created so many wonderful markers in so many amazing people's lives. Getting old allows me understanding and the ability to determine things that a younger me would never have even given a second glance. Things I could never have imagined at thirty have happened in the past ten years of existence. Not all great things; but more than enough to make the trip one to smile upon when glancing at them in the reflections of a darkened window in the evening. I'm here. The echo of dispair resonates through my mind when I think about how it could have been. Through age I have learned to doubt my negative assumptions.
As a twenty year old, I made a declaration to myself and all who would listen that if I wasn't married with a family by thirty, I would kill myself to end a lonely life. Time would prove that marriage wasn't any better than alone, depending on who your partner was. At times, it was worse. I won't say I "soldiered on"; more like I pushed through because I had given my word and I felt a responsibility to keep it to those around me. What if I had ended myself in those early days? Depression made it very possible to make my twenties the end of the beginning. I would never have seen Las Vegas. New York. San Francisco. Florence. I would never have tried a litany of foods. Cooking would have been a Hardy Boys mystery. I couldn't have learned the wonders of anime. Strip clubs. The book I am creating would have been lost to the cosmos. So many jokes untold; laughs not shared; pains left lurking in the souls of many.
I would never have known the greatest love I have ever known: my son and my wife. The experience of having them both curled close to me - a pod of love and life that really has been the stamp of my later life.
Ultimately, age has given me the vision of a true future. When you're young or even in your twenties, life seems like it will always be the limited scope of things you have experienced in those early days - mostly school, the struggle of finding your self, enjoying all the things we couldn't at a young age (generally to excess), financially battling toward comfort - all while learning how to interact with the world around you and learning to be a cog in the community construct. With practice comes mastery (either what is expected or what you have determined is the portrait you have chosen to hang on your face for the world), and confidence in what the world is and where you exist in it. For the first time in my life, the thought of eighty is one I can see vividly - the people I have in my life sitting with me in an old folks home. It takes twenty years to have a friend of two decades - another gift you can only accomplish by growing older.
Believe me, when I wake up in the morning with my back creaking and my knees popping, it isn't what I envisioned would be my fate. However, it is a small price to pay for being able to kiss my wife good morning; talking to my son for hours; jokins with my closest friends throughout many moments painted against a black canvas. None of us are ever 100% happy nor is life always going to have us in a place of thanks and grins. I have found my content to know that I have far too much to appreciate to ever bemoan some extra shots and occasional daily discomforts. (Prostate exams notwithstanding)
If you are one of these young people who are caught in the depression of "Will this always be the way?", I can promise you it does get better. You just need to take the time now to learn and grow from the pain to remold yourself to be ready when the right people and right situation come along..... so that you feel worthy of your (eventual) "good fortune" that you have worked your whole life to acheive.
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