Reflections on Aging

Why do we have children? Is there any yardstick more terrifying, in terms of getting older? I have friends whose children are now driving, some whose children are starting middle school. My own oldest is starting Kindergarten today.

You know what I realized? I feel younger than my friends with older children appear to be.

That's right. People who are younger than me, people I went to high school with who were 1 to 3 years behind me, have children as much as 12 years older than my oldest child and I see myself as younger than these old friends.

And my thoughts?

Yikes! Having children gives one too much perspective! A point of reference too solid to ignore! And what's worse: There's no going back, no undoing this marker.

Obviously, not having children wouldn't prevent the aging process, and living in a bubble of ignorance wouldn't change the fact that as time passes, our bodies begin breaking down and betraying us. And yet there is something to be said about such a blissful blindness.

Another thought I had: Television shows that we consider ourselves contemporary to work against us in a similar way.

 I was either on my mission or about to leave on my mission when the first episode of Friends aired in 1994. Children who were born that day will be leaving on their missions next year.

Kids born when The X-Files first aired are leaving on their missions this year.

I heard some "adults" at work talking about Pokémon last year... not derisively as I might, but with childhood fondness, the way I could (still) talk about Voltron, the Muppet Show, or any number of programs I could call up from my childhood.

World Politics give perspective, too... I'm curious about the Red Dawn remake... what fear does today's generation have of waking up to a world where the Soviets have invaded? In fact, I have to wonder if today's generation really even knows what a "Soviet" is? If they paid attention in History class, they'll be able to tell you about the USSR, I suppose... And yet, even for me, somebody whose childhood was flavored by fears of the Soviet Union, movies about Soviet aggression, that acronym, U.S.S.R. appears foreign to my eyes - and it's only been about 20 years since the Soviet government collapsed - how can I expect today's generation to appreciate movies like Firefox (Clint Eastwood, 1982), WarGames (Broderick, 1983), Night Crossing (Bridges, Hurt, 1982).

Plenty of other things give perspective as well.  Neil Armstrong passed away on Saturday. He walked on the moon 6 years before I was born. No man has walked on the moon in my lifetime at all... but at least Neil was still alive.

But all of these things are non-essentials to me. I can ignore them, I can forget about them, I can pretend that Friends/X-Files/Seinfeld/etc. are still airing thanks to Netflix, DVD, etc. I can pretend that Neil is still alive (since I won't really talk to him any less often than I did before). I can pretend John Stockton and Karl Malone still play for the Jazz (since I didn't watch all that much basketball to begin with). I can still think of Russia as the Soviet Union (since the Soviets didn't want to be called Russians when I was a child, I feel weird referring to Russians as Russians as an adult, anyway).

My friends' children are likewise non-entities as far as my self-delusion is concerned. Most of these friends are facebook friends, which is to say I have little-to-no contact with them outside of my occasional forays into their fb updates, so their children are strangers to me - they could be anybody's kids.

But my children... My children are the lasso around my neck. I cannot ignore them, pretend they aren't there, get away from the truth they force upon me. I cannot escape the fact of them and of their aging and growing. I cannot close my eyes and tell myself it's all just a dream and I'll wake up in a few minutes - time to get up to catch the school bus.

No, my children force perspective on me, make me acknowledge myself in a way I'm not always comfortable with. Make me see myself as I truly am. They are a fun-house reflection of me. Not really me, but close enough to make me take stock of who I am, what I am, and what I could be and must be.

Am I sorry I have children? Absolutely not. Would I have it any other way? Blasphemy! But do I long for the ignorance, the veil of self-deception that allows me to think I'm as young as I feel? Certainly!

What I never understood as a child, and I understand better every day, is that older people don't know they're older people! They may have a brain-bound knowledge of their age, and their bodies may be breaking down, and they may talk about being old all the time... but in their heads, they still see themselves as they used to be. They still remember how it felt to be young and alive and full of vigor. And not only do they remember it, they feel it... they think they still have it, even if they know that it's gone or going.

I just realized that I used the word "they" in the above paragraph, not the word "we." And yet, I am an older person - by childhood standards. And yet it doesn't feel right to go back and change the "they"s to "we"s above. I am older, I know. But I'm not old. I'm not one of them... And I never will be. The amazing thing about this is that I know there are people older than me who will read this, some of them as much as 20-30 years older than me, who will undoubtedly not think of themselves as part of the "they" when they read it, either.  They will see themselves as I see myself: aging but not old. Breaking down, but still young. Bodies that don't do what they used to, but inside, still full of life, desires, joys, fears, longings, hopes, needs, wants, and so much more - the things young people are known for live on in the older generations, but they are curbed by reality and buried under responsibility and care.

I've rambled incoherently for a while now (it is a blog on aging after all), and though the student in me wants to go back and re-structure, re-write, and edit the piece - the writer in me wants to leave the stream of thought as it is. I woke up this morning unable to get back to sleep, all the vagaries of my dreams still prancing about in my semi-conscious mind, and I felt an urgency to get in front of my PC and type the thoughts and ideas and randomness of my frail processes... and because this is not a work of academia, or a piece of scholarship, not an article intended for publication in any respected journals or magazines, and is merely my blog - shared with whomever finds it, but more directly with those who know me and perhaps love me, I feel more honest leaving it as it is. Streaming and unedited (well... I do some editing as I go along - but it's minor stuff like spelling, word-usage, you know: the basics).

I started this out focused on how old I feel when I reflect on all the changes around me, but have ended up regarding my age as merely the tangible part of wisdom and responsibility. Inside, I am no older than I was 20 years ago, so I suspect in 20 years, I'll be no older than I am today - and by extension, no older than I was 20 years ago, still. My body may be more beaten, my actions may be more deliberate, my choices more experienced, but barring actual cerebral damage and decay, I anticipate feeling like I have always felt, on an emotional, intellectual level.

If only children could understand this.  If only older people knew how to teach it... Fortunately, anybody who lives long enough to become "older" will learn it. I expect I've just touched on the surface of what it's really like for those who have lived 37 years more than I have.  I'll see about looking back on this when I'm 74, and maybe make an update at that time. Unless I am just too old to bother.