I have come to understand over the past year, I am no longer afraid of dying – I just fear decaying.
I’m not sure how our existent clocks are handed out or how our fate is decided. Are we born with a predetermined lifeline? Or is it all by chance?
It would seem while my desire is to stay young, there are many more times now in my life that I see my physicality breaking down. If it was just the wear of time, greying hairs, wrinkled skin and extra pounds then perhaps I could slide serenely into old age, but the ravages of surgeries, the scars of radiation, the poison of Chemotherapy apparently has laid its toll on me.
I now take precautions that people much older than I take. Finding it necessary to ensure every trip no matter how small is close to certain facilities so there are no accidents. The moments of passion I once took for granted have to be well planned and organized. Simply put, I am not the man I once was.
What’s worse, I look back on the man I was years ago and realize the ass that resided inside me. He was the man who pushed aside those that were senior, believing how could they understand what I feel or know, I am young, vital and of consequence.
Now I am that man being pushed aside. It happens every day. I see those half my age and think for a fleeting moment “I can relate” to what they think and feel. And then realize I cannot because to do so would be to be accepted as one of them, and then I see that look, the same one I used to keep the older people at bay in my past.
Perhaps this is what Karma is – the collection of my deeds of honour and of evil delivered in payback.
At least now when I look at people older than I, I do have a sense of what they are thinking, and I stop and take note. It’s not much different than to what anyone of any age thinks, “Am I enough?”
Perhaps the truth is age gives us one clear insight. Scottish author J.M. Barrie wrote as he got older “I am no longer young enough to know everything.”
I wish I did again, but then I wish I was young again too
Namaste my friends
