I somehow didn’t see this coming. One day, you’re young, hot, and have your life in front of you. The next, you’re worried about gas prices, the upcoming winter and a suspicion your cat only likes you for the wet food. Is aging better than the alternative? I suppose but the older I get, the more this quote resonates with me:
“Youth is wasted on the young.”
You look at older people and can understand that each day brings you closer to looking like them but somehow, it is still a shock. It’s relentless as well. Each second we get older. Tick tock, tick tock.
Today will be the youngest you will ever be again. Tick tock. Tick tock.
Is your back a little tighter? Need to squint to read that recipe? Feel a little heavier? Tick tock, tick tock.
When I taught kindergarten in Thailand in 2011, those kids were about 5 years old. Those kids are now in university! Those kids will soon have their own kids; it is all very unsettling.
I was grabbing lunch the other day and one of the few remaining Microplay’s was in the plaza I was parked in.
(Microplay was/is a video game store that was similar to Blockbuster)
When I was in grade 9, the owner called me and asked if I wanted to work there. It was a dream come true.
Apparently, I was there often enough for him to know who I was and thought I would be a good employee. We would get movies before they were released, take home games to try out and have opinions about and basically just hangout and talk about movies and video games and call it work. This was so long ago that I remember taking a DVD player from Microplay home because we would rent them out to people!
I summarized this experience to the two Microplay employees and I wouldn’t exactly categorize their interest level in my story as high.
When I was a kid, we sold fruit punch out of these fridges!
People don’t really want to hear stories from old people. My stories are only going to get worse and I will forget whatever interesting stories I do have and will just end up yelling about the wind (man, I hate the wind; Ottawa is so windy and it’s not great for big bubbles)
Are there upsides to getting old? I’m sure there are older people than me that trick themselves into believing the best is yet to come. It isn’t and that’s okay but let’s not lie to ourselves. They do studies about happiness and in a shocking twist, things are about to get worse!
I think 80 year olds might be happier because they know they don’t have to take out the garbage or shovel ever again.
Have my first 40 years been better than most? I think so. Will the next 40 be? Stay tuned.
“Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.”
Kitty O’Neill Collins
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