I was going to write about my hair today. Maybe later.
I have been mulling over ageing and societal norms and so on for the last few weeks. I've been arranging and rearranging thoughts and looking at ideas and culling the interwebs for information and a lot of it points to a sometimes subtle, sometimes not-so resistance to ageing. I believe it stems, in part, from a fear of death. Because in spite of evidence to the contrary, that is generally how we think of death: you get old, then you die. It follows that we might want to stave off the "getting old" part of that equation in order to distance ourselves from the inevitable. We want to cling to life.
What we forget is that death is a wild card. It comes when it feels like it.
I learned this afternoon that after three days of a search and rescue mission, some dear friends just recovered their son's body from the river where he was last seen. He had just turned twenty-five.
These are my thoughts on ageing today:
I get to be 39.
I get to watch my hair turn gray. I get to witness my body and my mind and my attitudes as they change with the years. I get to have this day to make messes, to volunteer, to be tired, to have indigestion, to be creative, to eat and breathe and walk myself around on my weary knees. I get to live.
When someone young and virile dies, we wonder why. Why would this person be taken in this way? It's unfair. It is too hard to even think about and it's almost nonsensical. But it happens. It happens and it disrupts the "natural order of things" that we firmly cling to. So the mortality of another becomes our own sudden brush with mortality. Why him? Why not me?
I get to be 39.
I may or may not get to be 40 or 60 or 107.
I get to be 39.
Today.
Right now.
If I am going to cling to life - and cling I will, for this is only human nature - I would rather cling to actual life. My looks are not my life. My athletic prowess is not my life. My figure, my eyesight, my teeth, my pop culture milieu are not my life. Or not the things that should matter about my life, anyway.
If I am going to cling to life, I want to embrace it. I want to appreciate the things that are here now without wasting time wanting things that have gone. I want to live today and not worry about what might happen in the future. I want to use the talents I have, hone my strengths, cull my weaknesses, share my abundance, make a tiny difference. If I am going to cling to life, I want it to be a life worth clinging to. Hair dye and face creams do not figure heavily in that life.
It seems ungrateful on this particular day to fear getting older.
It is a luxury I have been afforded.
I get to be 39.
What will I do with this gift?
I have been mulling over ageing and societal norms and so on for the last few weeks. I've been arranging and rearranging thoughts and looking at ideas and culling the interwebs for information and a lot of it points to a sometimes subtle, sometimes not-so resistance to ageing. I believe it stems, in part, from a fear of death. Because in spite of evidence to the contrary, that is generally how we think of death: you get old, then you die. It follows that we might want to stave off the "getting old" part of that equation in order to distance ourselves from the inevitable. We want to cling to life.
What we forget is that death is a wild card. It comes when it feels like it.
I learned this afternoon that after three days of a search and rescue mission, some dear friends just recovered their son's body from the river where he was last seen. He had just turned twenty-five.
These are my thoughts on ageing today:
I get to be 39.
I get to watch my hair turn gray. I get to witness my body and my mind and my attitudes as they change with the years. I get to have this day to make messes, to volunteer, to be tired, to have indigestion, to be creative, to eat and breathe and walk myself around on my weary knees. I get to live.
When someone young and virile dies, we wonder why. Why would this person be taken in this way? It's unfair. It is too hard to even think about and it's almost nonsensical. But it happens. It happens and it disrupts the "natural order of things" that we firmly cling to. So the mortality of another becomes our own sudden brush with mortality. Why him? Why not me?
I get to be 39.
I may or may not get to be 40 or 60 or 107.
I get to be 39.
Today.
Right now.
If I am going to cling to life - and cling I will, for this is only human nature - I would rather cling to actual life. My looks are not my life. My athletic prowess is not my life. My figure, my eyesight, my teeth, my pop culture milieu are not my life. Or not the things that should matter about my life, anyway.
If I am going to cling to life, I want to embrace it. I want to appreciate the things that are here now without wasting time wanting things that have gone. I want to live today and not worry about what might happen in the future. I want to use the talents I have, hone my strengths, cull my weaknesses, share my abundance, make a tiny difference. If I am going to cling to life, I want it to be a life worth clinging to. Hair dye and face creams do not figure heavily in that life.
It seems ungrateful on this particular day to fear getting older.
It is a luxury I have been afforded.
I get to be 39.
What will I do with this gift?
I am so sorry about your friends' son. Your response to such tragedy is not breathtaking but breathgiving. I get to be 56.
ReplyDeleteWow, thank you so much, Angella! And welcome to the Periphery! Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment!
DeleteI'm having a bad day. My brother popped in for a surprise visit, which helped. Nothing like surprises to jolt one out of the tentacles of woe. This post was likewise a surprise -- thank you. I am tiny, but the difference you've made in my life with this post and many others is not so tiny.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry you were having a bad day. Yay for surprise visits from loved ones! Your kind words mean so much. Thank you.
DeleteYou have nailed it. Ungrateful. I feel this way too much, but I know the antidote. Gratitude always precedes the miracle.
ReplyDeleteSuzanne, I am so very sorry to hear your friends' horrible news. So sad. Thank you for the strong reminder to appreciate the privilege of aging. Of living. xoxo
(I still think it;s cool you and i are the same age!)
Sometimes I wail and moan over the beginnings of old lady skin. I move the skin on the back of my hands up and down and sideways and have a silly freak out over loss of elasticity.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I think the same thing: I get to have old lady skin. I get to grow older. I look to my 80 year old Grandma, and I think, someday, if I'm lucky, I will wear my wrinkles with pride. I better start now.
It has taken me a long time, but I am finally letting go of those physical worries. It's incredibly liberating. I am 47 and happy about it. But, I will still color my hair. =]
ReplyDeleteLeave it to you to take something senseless and tragic and make something useful and beautiful from it.
ReplyDelete