Aging and Growing Older

Maybe it is because I never expected to live this long or grow old. I was not naive and thought I would be the only person never to age. Instead, I thought that I would not be alive this long.

I am sure it has something to do with losing my parents at a very young age. However, my grandparents lived into their 90s; it is different; grandparents are supposed to get old.

In my world, at least.

I was raised after age 13 with my grandmother, who was already in her 60s and raised her seven children.

Grandparents were always old and gray. Parents were not old and gray; they simply did not exist except in my memories.

Did they ever exist?

After so long, the memories begin to fade, and they become distant memories.

That is until I began aging.

When I see my friends and their parents, I think about how similar my friend looks to their parents, at least one of them. Usually, as one age, one notices patterns in aging.

You become more stubborn like your father or become softer like your mother.

You may have the same wrinkle lines on your forehead as one of your parents.

You see what your future holds, and you embrace it, thinking, wow, she is aging well.

I do not have this reference.

I have often thought, well, at least I lost my parents young; I don’t have to worry about dealing with that now. But their loss has created a significant gap in my adult life, especially now in how I will age.

Will I turn gray at a young age, or will it wait until I am older? Will my wrinkles become progressively worse or hit me all at once?

There is also a part of me that believes that you can change your DNA. I have never believed in something being genetic, so to speak.

Things get passed down from generation to generation, but I believe you can change this. This is another topic altogether, but that is a trait I got from my parents.

My few memories left of them are of them pressing the boundaries and not believing what other people said.

That aging is about gaining wisdom; who cares when you go gray?

Who cares when those fine wrinkles turn into deep crevices?

I like to think my parents are still living in the holler and pushing boundaries, telling us that aging is a blessing reserved for the brave.

They are hermits in the mountains, possibly influencing me more than I realize, except instead of externally, they are influencing me internally.

The way they always did.

Living in the mountains, how much of that is inside me now?

Every day, it seems I want more and more to go back to what they created. How I was born will be the way I die.

The desire to remove all external stimuli from my life is slowly happening. The older I get, the more I realize who cares if the wrinkles and gray hair come.

Some may never know what it is like to age; some did not get that privilege, which is reserved for the brave.

We are those of us who not only talk about living deep in the woods but go toward it and fight against the grain of questions such as:

• What happens if you live too far from a hospital?
• What happens if you hurt yourself and can no longer provide for yourself?

These are all the questions we get as we age, and those who want to push us into a box of you must live here, in your safe space, so nothing happens, and if it does, hit this button.

I have always imagined my parents living and dying the same way, and I see this because it is what happened.

Except I see it for myself as well.

After years of working in the hospital, I do not want to live near a hospital. The earth is my hospital, and the herbs I grow can ease the pains.

The choice to step away and live the way you want is part of the aging process. Realize what is essential in your life, and since I do not have children to tell me that I am wrong and can’t live a certain way. The choice is mine.

Maybe that is why I never had children. I have seen so many patients who want to live a certain way but do not because ¨my kids tell me I can’t do this anymore.¨

I never understood telling a grown adult how to live.

We have one life — well, I believe we have many — but in this form, this body, I have one. My soul will move on to another life, and this one will be like dust in the wind, forgotten.

So, my original questions are forgotten, as I do not try to prevent aging. I simply strive to age the way I want and enjoy the privilege many did not get.

XOXO

S