Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The topic of aging has worked itself into conversations recently, overtly and subtly, and sure enough, it’s set up camp in my mind. I would say it’s more of a nomad’s camp, though, because it’s not like I’ve been consumed by the subject matter. It’s been more like a soup of fleeting ideas. Then I realized that Tuesday posts are perfect for light, airy concerns like this, so why not collect my thoughts here?

If you were to ask me to trace an arc through the different stages of life, I’d probably proceed like so. Let me know if this trajectory sounds familiar to you. Your teens and your early 20s are fresh, new. During your late 20s, you lock it down and find your compass. Your 30s, 40s, and 50s are for family and career. When you hit your 60s, this festering shithole of an economy permitting, you enter your golden years–retirement–which, if those Cialis and Metamucil commercials are to be believed, are when silver-maned couples cavort through nondescript, sun-swept fields of wheat.

That’s a gross simplification, obviously, and it’s really the grit and the grime, the stuff in between, that got me thinking about all this: the ailments, the wills, the arguments, the small triumphs. I walked out of one discussion today feeling, for the first time in a while, like I was young again, which promptly incited in me a momentary sense of urgency. How do I make the most of my time? What’s my guiding principle? My answer, at this juncture, is to be thankful, but never content–to balance gratitude with the belief that gratitude isn’t enough. Now, as for whether this approach is right or wrong, I suppose I’ll find out when I’m older.