I can remember how I used to speculate about how I would encounter my future.
I was going to be big. Not the biggest, but something. We were all going to be something. I don’t think my aspirations or my optimism have changed much, but I look back on that spot I was standing proclaiming my conquest, and I realize now that the mere fact that I’m looking means something has changed. The knowledge of time passing, of a single day gone, or another step toward the abyss, that’s what aging is. They say you’re childhood is over the moment you know you’re going to die. It’s amazing how you can go on until this point, whatever this point is now, and think you’ll be the first one to live forever.
I don't feel old, but I'm starting to understand what it means to become older, to no longer be the proud owner of a reckless youth.
I can remember the pleasure of not seeing the road in front of me. Usually youthful discussions unfettered by hindsight were fun because there was so much in front of us. There's a certain comfort in the freedom of uncertainty. I could be this or I could go after that, and as far as the cloudy road would show me, that goal would be mine for the taking, not just for the talking. The method was thankfully always far enough beyond my headlights that I needn’t have worried about the madness on the road between it and me. I knew it was long and wide enough that the predictions and gambles wouldn't throw me far enough off my trail that I couldn't find my way back. Life was a platinum credit card, with an eternity until payment was due.
I’ve watched things occur among my friends and to my family that have paved the road behind me, cleared the cloudiness and sharpened my view when I turn and look backward. I’ve been to the funerals and weddings of people I think about every day, said I love you and been rejected, said I’m sorry and been accepted, I’ve joked about baldness and illness, gray hair and mortgages, and brought gifts to my friends’ children and told them how big they’re getting. I’ve marked spots in the world with my footprints where the dust will never settle the same way. I have lived well by my estimation. Some experiences make you different than the day before they occurred. You can’t be who you were the day before, so you must then be one day closer to death.
I remember an essay by Umberto Eco I read during university. It was about Superman, which is what originally caught my interest. He discussed how the comic book stories never changed the man, essentially different from most characters of his iconography, who progress through experience. He is challenged, he fights and overcomes, but concluding every adventure he stands unchanged. No one learns his identity, no one gets closer to him, he doesn't step another day toward death; he remains cursed by immortality. Superman and his story are not allowed to age, the inherent dubiousness of being an idol. Though his icon retains its impressive profile, he stands envious of the humans, because it's the experiences of success and frailty actually makes us great.
Just try explaining that to… us.
We don't like being older. We don't like the idea of another day passing us another step towards death. We don't like the idea of being on the other side of the peak of our performance. We don't like admitting that failure. We fear being perceived in comparison to the younger us, the ultimate rival.
Why isn't our pride inherent? Why can't it be ignorant of our calendar age? Why do we always have to wait for acceptance and cautiously avoid the possibility of being poorly evaluated? Why does age eventually equal castration? Why do I feel I have to write about it?
I wonder sometimes about the source of my concern. What is the actual problem with potentially having fewer days before me than behind me? Why can't I be satisfied with what I've done? Am I scared of death? Do I fear being elderly? Do I fear being an accountable adult? Is it merely that I'll slip out of the PEPSI demographic?
We are all greedy when it comes to our life story. I think we all want to be the biography of the century, to believe that we are all immortal and worthy in some way. We want to amass all the quality possible and don't relish the thought of the window of opportunity closing. Aging becomes about potential, what we think we are capable of achieving, and what we potentially stand to lose.
I've been lucky to sidestep many of the general aesthetics of aging. I haven't lost my hair, my hair hasn't lost its pigment, my physicality remains, with a scar here and there. I am older but I'm not old, it's as though a second adolescence has befallen me. I'm in between worlds.
I am the guy in the group of friends that has resisted maturity. Maturity meant something different five years ago, as did success and progression. I sought an elusive career, while they each found a mate, committed to a home and built a family. Now they have a different achievement, a purpose intertwined with those in their family portrait. These friends are not alone on their road into the uncertain future. Every choice they make considers the people who consider them. What they’ve built has built one of the lines in time that marks their path. Sharing uncertainty makes the horizon smaller, but I know they don’t lament that.
Infinity is no longer right there. I can remember feeling comforted in discussing my ravenous and boundless aspirations. With my fitful hindsight, I now see that they were built on a gamble free of consequence. No one can tell you the world is not yours when you're looking over three-quarters of your life; a forest too massive to think about the tress. As ugly cynicism slowing plods in, I now ask myself questions with less fantastical answers.
The most interesting thing about this landmark of life, this source of infinite anguish, the threat of aging, is how it's been sold to us. We’re told it’s a condition of weakness and irrelevance. The worst thing about being old is accepting the sales pitch, that you've lost something from your former youth.
Older is a seemingly unforced admission.
Older is not just about feeling limitations, it's about dwelling in consequences.
I'm lucky to stand in a moment with enough road behind me to admit mistakes with the mask of wisdom, but with enough horizon far enough ahead of me to be inspired by my persevering aspirations.
I’m glad the road is clearer, both behind and ahead of me, and for the loss of blessed uncertainty I have gained the burden of experience. I look back now at the hopeful kid and wish he could look back up at me. For the most part I’d have nice things to say, but maybe between the two of us we could grab a nugget of advice from the really old version of both of us.
I am wine. I am art. One day might float into the next with little or no distinction, leaving me looking for lost time as I look back down the road, but regardless of what convention tells me I’ve lost, I know that today I’m better than yesterday.
Grandpatrick
