Aging
Some may regard aging as a curse and a blessing, what you trade for youth you gain in perspective and wisdom. You may recall how large rooms and places seemed when you’re young, but as you grow up they seem significantly smaller. As we age, the blank spaces on the map are filled in and the mystery of the unknown lapses into the banality of the familiar. We no longer see the parks and vacation spots we visited as children as vast, infinite worlds to explore, but pocketed miniatures rich in nostalgia.
We trade our fresh sense of curiosity for the comfort of the reassurance that comes from seeing the sun rise for the thousandth time. In every person’s life there comes the night they go to sleep fearing that the sun won’t come up the next day, only to wake up and understand that nothing will impede the sun from making its voyage across the sky. It’s a natural part of life, aging and growing old doesn’t have to be a sentencing, it’s something that can be savored and enjoyed. Peace comes in the form of acceptance, and youth is something you integrate into the innermost part of you. Maybe it’s growing accustomed to change, the change in body and spirit as the world piles on experiences.
Panic is one of the worst feelings in the world, the unsettling feeling of urgency that creeps throughout your blood and arrests your senses. As you get older, it loses its power over you. Aging is the great gateway into wisdom. You may recall seeing movies or even growing up with the middle aged and elderly happily rocking their way to dinnertime as they survey life pass by on their porch. Let’s call these people porch philosophers. The beautiful, wonderful thing about them is the sense of tranquility they exude from the acceptance of the inevitable. There’s a grace in knowing and sharing of that. It might be hard for some, to admit that youth has passed them by. That’s understandable, the twilight years fade into the yawning sunlight of the dusk. We fear the potential unknowns of what comes from prospect of the life after loss. Many of us tend to find and understand religion to an extent we never could when we were younger. It’s something that only those who have the luxury of reaching it understand. When you know that things aren’t that big a deal you tend to smile, instead of worrying, knowing that there is always something to be learned.
