2010.04.23 What If I Don't Want To Grow Old

I don't mean this in a "forever young" sort of way either. From what I can see of growing old, it can be either good or bad, much like anything else. But the actual death part... I'm not so sure about that. Lingering, and suffering just seems... well, awful linger-y and suffer-y.

Related to that, but oddly distinct, is the way in which I find myself interacting with the way people died. There's a visceral juxtaposition between "they were taken from us too soon" versus "it was actually kind of a relief". I don't mean that people love their elderly kith and kin any less, but there is an ineffable sense of what the dead person's relationships were about immediately prior to their demise.

There's no denying that I feel burdened with complicated guilt about being so far away from my mom now that dad is gone, and fearing that my emotional distance is an unintended torment to her. And this in turn reveals an even more selfish worry about being left old and alone to just fade away. I'm afraid of succumbing to my old tragic and pathetic melodrama, and having that self-pity be my whole existence. Surviving, but not really living any more.

Obviously, it need not be so. The idea of growing old with S is fabulous, sharing everything. Especially if we also get to bask in the adoration of our children and our children's children.

Except, as I admitted, I'm somewhat ashamed of my own wan adorations. And I suffer from cynicism.

I'm not really sure what the alternative is, though. There's this vague idea that, after Simon is old enough, I could be free once again to contemplate pursuing dangerous and foolish things. Racing, skiing, motorcycles, small aircraft - all stuff that I want to do anyway, but might hold back from the riskier variants of because of my mortality.

Ironically, it may be that the very heart disease and arthritis and Alzheimer's that I'm most afraid of will take the option away from me. I may become enfeebled suddenly, like my dad was, such that any risky behaviour becomes almost implicitly suicide attempts instead of what I would really want.

And I should be clear about this - I would never want to kill myself. I'm just not sure I want to NOT do some things so that I can grow old.