Thoughts as you Age

As we prepare for our old age, I think sometimes we use our young minds that fail to decipher what our old selves will like. What we think might give us comfort in old age may not matter at all when we get there. It might start appearing to be vanity as our bodies and minds take new directions, life slows down, and our mortality becomes more pronounced.

Some of what we think won’t count might mean much more than anything else that we prioritize in preparing for retirement. Some elderly people seem to have it all, yet all they yearn for is as simple as company – ‘please send me your children to play from here’.

As our natural cycle takes us back to a child-like state of vulnerability, frailty, and dependence, aging humbles us. Do we at that point look back at the vain energy we put into things that turn out to be mere illusions? Do we smile at some of our stupid mistakes of young energy? Do we tell ourselves that we did what we were supposed to on account of what we knew then? What occupies our lonely minds in old age? I often imagine myself in senility, with my hands weak and shaky, not able to draw a stick-boy. Fingers unable to type three sentences.

Will a feeling of having depreciated into near total uselessness be my biggest bother? Perhaps then those things will not matter, as long as there will be someone to talk to and space to get to terms with my finality. That’s if I get there