Sunday, November 8, 2015

Day 4 - "pick a blog idea from my notes and run with it" challenge

Day 4 - "Getting old was someone else's unattainable dream".

Wow. I remember this sentence well.  It wasn't mine. It was actually lifted from a friend's post. I cannot begin to pretend that I know how she felt when she said it. I do not walk in her shoes and have not had the horror of experiencing losing two partners to cancer.  But what I do know is that I found that statement quite profound. And once again, reading someone else's words has made me think and possibly rethink how I feel about something.

Getting old.

I have always wanted to get older. When I was a child I could not wait to be an adolescent. When I was an adolescent I couldn't wait to be an adult. Even as an adult it seemed that an older version of adult was more desirable.  Even at pushing 50, I still sometimes wish I was just a little bit older, That somehow more sophistication and class come with age. That if I just get a little older I will get regal looking with my gray hair, and that I will carry myself with an aura that attracts people and makes them want to sit and listen to my wise words of wisdom.  I know it's not true but I find age to be a positive, not a negative.

So much of the media, and what is put in front of us, tells us that getting old is bad. It repeats, over and over, that wrinkles are ugly, your slower metabolism will make you fat and unattractive, and that you are destined to be lonely putting milk in the cabinet instead of the fridge. Our world is full of ways to prevent these terrible things from happening. The market on "how not to get old" (and essentially undesirable) is huge.

But when you put getting old into perspective, such as realizing how many people will never even have the opportunity to experience getting old, phrases like "getting old was someone else's unattainable dream" should really make you rethink your take on aging.

I can guarantee you, those that never had the opportunity to experience "old" would not be complaining about their wrinkles, fat or memory loss if they were just given the chance to live to see it.

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