I'm not one to question God and his motives, but I can't help but ask sometimes, "Why must things be this way?"
I've rushed into my twenties, and it's hard for me to accept sometimes that high school, which seems like yesterday, is all of 8 years ago. I won't pretend to understand how others older than me feel now, and its ironic that, despite believing they likely feel worse than I do, I hope to live long enough to feel the way they feel.
But life really rushes by. As a big sleeper, it dawned on me that if I sleep for 8 hours a day on average, I would have slept out 33% of my life. And given how quickly life goes by, is that really something I want? I don't have the best memory, and it bugs me that I can't remember much of my past... events from school, people I've known... things like that. And when I think about the fact that I've lived out a third of my life expectancy, and that my memory's only likely to get worse... man, is there anything to be happy about.
But after all that, there's one thing what scares me about getting older, and that's getting old. I remember this email I received a couple times (and I wish I could find it) that illustrates the life-span of the human being. And the point of it was that a person is born, reaches something of a peak, and then ends up right where he started. I remember that it starts by saying that as a baby you soil your pants, and by the time you're old, you're doing it again. As funny as the email was, it was true on every level.
As I sat in the waiting room at a doctor's office several days ago, an elderly lady was wheeled in by a nurse. I looked at her as she sat in her chair- her face sagged everywhere, it didn't seem she was able to speak, and was probably barely conscious of what was going on in her surroundings. And I thought to myself, "This woman could have been a deaconess or a thief. She could've have been Miss Jamaica or Ugly Betty. She could've been really bitter and cold or the sweetest woman on earth." The point is, one day she was as vibrant and lively... and young... as me. And now she's subjected to this- being pushed around by a stranger, all real purpose in life stripped from her feeble hands.
Is that really any way to go out?
3 comments:
Scary indeed
That's why they say 'once a man twice a child'.
I think about that all the time you BC. As a matter of fact, I've said that I don't want to live to the point where I can't do anything for myself. Longevity is not such a big deal to me, it's the quality of life that I think is important. The other day I visited a friend's grandfather and felt really sad because he was dribbling all over himself, and thought i don't want to live to that point.
What a way to end the post star. Makes me think you out there planning some sensational death while you're young so you don't have to grow old and dependable.
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