30 June 2008

Aging

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?

~Satchel Paige~
I still live in the town I grew up in. I still have a few friends from high school that I see regularly. I think because I have continued to see them, they still look the same to me. It's different when I run into people I haven't seen in 20 years.

While shopping today I saw someone I went to high school with. I wasn't really friends with her, she was in the class below me. But I knew who she was. When I saw her I knew it was her. It looked just liked her. Except (wait for it.....) She looked REALLY OLD!!!!!!

I can't comprehend this old thing. I see myself everyday and I don't think I look old. I see my sister (who is 5 years older than me) and my friends who are the same age as me....and I don't think we look old. But then I run into someone I haven't seen in years and she looks old. And it wasn't just this woman. Every time I see someone from high school whom I haven't seen in 20 years, they look old to me. Which must mean I look old to them.

I don't feel old. Sure some days my body hurts in places it never used to. I certainly don't have the physique I had 20 years ago, but my brain, it feels the same. When I look at myself, aside from the grey hair and the laugh lines, I look the same. At least I think I do...(I suppose my hubby may beg to differ). How did I get to be 40 years old?

I can't understand people who say every birthday is their 29th. I am not a fan of plastic surgery. I do think I can grow old gracefully. It's not the looking old or even the number that bothers me. It's the actual aging......getting old. I just can't wrap my mind around it. I can't imagine myself in 20 years. When I am 60 will I still think I look the same? Will I still think I feel the same? Do you ever reach a point where it hits you that you are just not the same person you were when you were 20? Because I know right now at 40, I still feel like the same person.

I'm afraid of getting old. I don't want to die. I don't want to even think about dying. It scares the crap out of me. I know as a Christian I shouldn't feel this way, but I do. I throw myself into a panic attack every time I think about getting old and dying. I have this brain that needs to know. I need to know exactly what is going to happen. I need assurance. I am freaked out about the whole idea of forever and forever. How can something be forever and ever? How can God have no beginning and no end? Everything has a beginning and an end. These are the thoughts that keep me up at night.

So I just go on doing what I do. Living day to day. I don't like to think too far into the future, because the future is unknown and I don't do well with the unknown. I know the end will come for me. It comes for everyone. That's just the way it is. (Freaking out here!) And the way I feel time flying by, I know it will be sooner than I think. I feel like my first 40 years went by so quickly, and I am sure the last 40 will feel twice as fast. Maybe I can make it to 100, and so maybe I have 60 more years to look forward to. Maybe I am not at the 1/2 way point yet. Maybe I need to keep telling myself that. Even if my body starts to fail me, I wonder if I will still feel 20 in my mind when I am 100?

The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.

~Doris Lessing~

4 comments:

Stephanie said...

Oh my gosh are you in my head?
I posted awhile ago about still being 17 at heart, I just turned 37 not 40 yet, LOL!

I totally get what you are saying. I don't see anyone I went to school with because I don't live there.
I still feel the same, well I think the same, my husband says we are still teenagers in 30 something bodies. We are young at heart, we still relate with young people. My husband is just a big kid, tonight he was riding my son's bike down the road. I just smiled because I would rather be married to a young at heart then an old fuddy duddy.

I don't think you look old, when I look in the mirror I do see some wrinkles around my eyes, I have like one grey hair :)

I just hope I age like my mother, she is just starting to look a little older to me, she is 54.

Donna said...

You don't think I look old because the picture I have posted of myself is about 5 years old : )

I wasn't old at 35, LOL.

I need an updated 40 year olds picture for you. I'll have to look for one.

unschoolermom said...

I think all of us think somewhat about getting old. I haven't come to the point yet that I think about it a lot.

I used to wonder about God's beginning. I can wrap my mind around God not having an end. But I used to wonder about God not having a beginning. I heard it one day put like God created time. Beginning and ending is in time. God is not. I think of it as one of the mysteries of the Bible. Mysteries are true, just unfathomable to our finite minds.

Kandy

Stephanie said...

LOL!
Well my picture is 4 years old :)

Don't have a whole lot of pics of me because I'm usually the one taking them.