Aging is a Bitch, And There is no Escape From It

There is only one alternative to getting old, no it’s not death

Your friends begin to die, your family is almost all gone; the rules change, your heroes become meaningless, and your cool and young self begins to fade. The new generation does not understand you, and your jokes are no longer funny. But wait, there’s more.

You look in the mirror and see an old dude, and you ask yourself? Who is that? But you don’t have time to think about it because your back hurts, and you can’t figure out why you have this little bulge in your abdomen. You call your friends you still have and look forward to having some fun, but they don’t feel very well today either. So you sit on your ass at home.

Thankfully you still have your job, but for the past five years, all you've been thinking is to quit: I’m done. I’m retiring. But then you figure you won't see anyone without your job. So you stay working for another year. But the time is coming when you’ll lose that too.

Getting old has many phases. But there is a point when things begin to change and fast. It’s like that moment in the sunset when it gets darker quickly. When you enter this phase, you see some dramatic, scary changes. The loss of your entire family is a big one. But in the end, you come to the stark realization that you’re not immune to anything. And at this point, you arrive at the head of the road; there were many before, but this one is a big one, and I call it —the free sample of death.

We are all going to die one day, but what we find out after we enter this advanced phase of life is that we begin to see death. When we were young, death was this obscure allegorical thing we never had to worry about. But when all the things you once held dear and the very things that are the pillars of your life disappear, you begin to see death up close and personal.

Some people just can’t handle this moment very well, and mixed with some debilitating physical challenges, they succumb to depression. People just give up. They were not in great shape as young, to begin with, and now with age, the possibility of thriving is remote. Depression set in, and disease loves depression. The feedback loop from hell is paved.