Old Age
It’s not, as the saying goes, “for sissies.” There are some lucky ones who, little by little, slow down but otherwise go on to the end pretty much as usual.
For the majority of people, however, it’s like living in a house that needs increasing repairs. The plumbing doesn’t work right anymore. There are bats in the attic. There is much creaking and groaning during harsh weather. And so on. If that leads senior citizens to think of all the things they’d still love to do, but can no longer do, it only makes things worse. But it should not work that way.
While this stage of life brings a lot of aches and pains, I like to think of old age as a second childhood. It can mean that if your spirit is still more or less intact, one of the benefits of being an old crock is that you can enjoy again something of what it’s like being a young squirt.
Part of the pleasure of being a child the first time around is that you don’t have to prove yourself yet. Part of the pleasure of being a child the second time is that you no longer have to prove yourself. You can be who you are and say what you feel, and let the chips fall where they may.
Very young and very old children also seem to be in touch with something the rest of the pack has lost. While everybody else is jockeying for position, the young and old children can lean back, put their feet up and like the octogenarian King Lear states, “pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies.” (William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act V, Scene 3, Lines 3135-3136.)
