I Woke Up Old

I’m getting pretty close to my 58th birthday. If you’re older, you would say, “oh you’re still young, wait till my age.” If you are young, you would say, “wow you’re old but you still look good for your age.” And as those statements do have some small impact on one’s own psyche, it’s my own thought processes and body changes that tell me, damn I woke up old. We pretty much take life for granted, most of us are guilty of that. We just go through life thinking nothing of it, carefree, oblivious to the truth of it all, ignorant to the fact that we all age. And aging appears to come faster and faster the more we do so. It’s not that a year of the life is any different in time span from being say 10 then it is to being 70, it’s still 365 days but what happens is, especially if one is more and more aware of it, is that we realize that as we age older and older we have less of our time left. We become acutely aware that time does and will run out. When we’re young, we can’t wait until we’re 18, can’t wait till we’re 21, have a career and children at 30 and are just busy living the rat wheel race of life. We are youthful, healthy and full of life for the most part. It feels as if we have all the time in the world. And then one day you wake up and your old. It may be 58, 68, or could even be a younger age. But you wake up and your body says, “whoa, what did you do to yourself”. You hurt, you could be out of shape, you could be having trouble now with issues that come with aging, as our bodies wear out. You come to the truth that you have lived most of your years and don’t have as much left to live out. The realization hits you and now you understand you woke up old. Where did the time go? There is no stopping it. No fountain of youth, no vampire to bite you to live forever. You woke up old and every day are getting older.

As I’ve aged, I understand a little better why some say people with the gray hair are the wise ones. They have lived this life in all its peaks and valleys. They have experienced life that we just can’t know until we experience it ourselves. And now that I’m getting older, I believe I just try and share some of life’s truths, well, just about getting older. How many 18- to 21-year-olds think they know it all, HA, many I suspect. Did you act that way, I know I did. I was married at 19 thinking I knew exactly what I was doing. I was in love and loooooove made everything alright. That’s not love nor knowledge, that’s just youthful vigor and ignorance, in my opinion. And I do understand that to a large degree this is how we learn things, by making mistakes, by trial and error, by maturing into thoughts and understanding. This is a good thing. But it comes at a cost, for there is such a relative short time to be in perfect balance with this. To have our bodies in peak shape, our minds clear and sharp to handle all that life throws at us. It’s here and then it’s gone and before we know it, we wake up old. I’m feeling that now turning 58 in a few months. I still am somewhat young, I still have muscle and balance, I still can think fairly logically and with reason and understanding but it’s changing faster, much faster than I would like it to. My body is wearing out; my brain is slowing and I completely know that I have less years to live than I have already lived. That’s the way life goes. One day you’re conquering the world and the next day you wake up old.

This is the journey, born to die. What we experience in the middle of all that is what really matters. I don’t know what was before I was born and I don’t know what will be when my spirit no longer resides in this tent of a body. So, I’m trying to live in the now. It’s incredibly difficult. I have deep regret and remorse from many past mistakes. I have great fear of limitation of the future. But one thing I do know is that each day is like a ticking clock off the years of my life and being aware of that is the battle I’m waging in the now. I know I woke up old so am I just going to let it happen or am I going to do all that I can with what I have left. Imagine if you were told you only had 6 months to live. What would you do? Eat the same old thing, watch the same old shows, go to the same old job? Many of us would. I’m fighting these exact chains of fear right now myself. Fighting against time, fighting against a body that will never be like I was when I was 20, fighting against a brain that ages and decays and soon will start to forget, fighting to have the strength and resolve just to keep on fighting. That’s what happens when we wake up old. But it’s not the end. Not yet. We don’t know if we have 6 months to live, 6 years or 30, but we do know, we are alive right now. So, what are we going to do about it? Every single human being might have to answer this question and I’m here to say and to share, that yep, I woke up old but I’m not dead and the journey is still before me and you. Let us continue on and see just how magnificent our “golden years” can be.