questions of age

 When I was a child I believed in childish things. 

I acted in a way that befitted my age and my world and that was what I knew. 

I knew that life would be what it was for me, with my family, in a particular space and that I was still learning. 

Now that I am older I am expected to know things, to be things that are just not me. I am expected to move on from things and adapt, but my head is stuck at a particular age, my body feels older and the world seems to move incredibly fast around me and all at once standstill in the minutia of the day. 

but what happens when we get to a point where we are sick. When we adopt a sick role in our story, the last role we will ever take. What happens with the mind decays and is lost in a loop that has no translation. What happens when all expectation falls out the window, does your personhood get called into question? The world we know is subjective. It is our little slice of what we make of it... but what if that slice dements until it is not anything resembling what you knew? Do we leave those people behind or do we find the compassion to listen to the same thing over and over and over again? Do we watch the game show network on repeat because that is the only channel they can get to with ease? Do we spend hours having the same discussions only to find grace in the ability to speak to them? 

The answer is yes. 

What we are seeing is our future. For it comes as a loss of agency, the strength of years coupled with the fragility of our existence. Old age is never promised, it is a gift. For it is not something to be squandered but reveled in. 

My mother will not turn 70, but time with her is a gift. Regardless of the hardships and difficulties. Time is what matters. The sound of her voice and the sassy determination still teaches me a thing or two today. 

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