No Turning Back

There’s no turning back from getting old. It’s a journey we all will take if we’re fortunate. When you’re young it seems far away —and it is. Until it isn’t. One morning you wake up and you’re retired. No more work deadlines, no more days and years strung together like so many beads on a necklace. Just a length of time and undetermined distance stretching out in front of you.

Aging has been advancing, apparently while I wasn't looking. I notice the skin on my arms seems more like Crêpe paper than it used to. I realize my hair isn’t as thick as it was just a few years back, and the base of my neck resembles a drying puddle. There’s a wobble in my gait going downhill, while getting up from an armchair requires more effort than before.

There’s never been a way to turn back life’s inevitable progression. No face cream, no cosmetic surgery, no lies told in candlelight can halt aging. Only when associated with deep loss might one’s journey become truly regrettable. For me, aging itself does not qualify as such. Nonetheless, getting older remains uncharted in so many ways. As the saying goes, there are no guarantees in life. Whether I am rich and famous, or middle class and basically unnoticed, that length of time and undetermined distance stretching out in front of me is only assured to be unpredictable.

It’s still early in my retirement so I’m not panicked about getting older. It’s just happening, irrevocably steady, unstoppable. Maybe that’s what strikes me most. I’ve been so use to the velocity of moving through middle age, of my children having children, of seemingly endless years of employment. Now I’m on the final lap of my life and though I’m not anxious, as I think about it, it is somewhat unsettling.

As upbeat as I tend to be, the heightened realization that the road behind me now is very much longer than the one that lies ahead can cause me to pause. I would not be truthful if I did not admit that I sometimes feel a little melancholy as memories turn into unreachable landmarks, faded signs erected along pathways no longer traveled. As my family moves on ahead of me at their own distinctive velocity, I feel caught between yesterday’s cherished reflections and tomorrow’s unknown future.

Despite my crepe-like skin, thinning hair and drying puddle neck, I only have one viable choice: to keep moving forward. Every day is new; each hour an occasion for opportunity to arise out of nowhere. Some of my best memories came from happenstance. It’s like life has always wrapped packages of adventure and secreted them ahead of me just out of sight. All I need to do is continue my journey, singing as I go.