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Life's Just a Roller Coaster
September 1st, 2004 12:04 amYou know, I think being fifty and therefore at the mid-point in life is affecting me more than I'm willing to let on. I've had more emotional ups and downs today than ought to be allowed; my moods are swinging on a much wider pendulum. The Big M proceeds apace and, truthfully, I just don't like it. And there's a bigger, darker side to it that I can barely face: Mortality. But I can't avoid it, either. It leads to gloomy thoughts, that's for sure.
So today I had the unnerving thought that I have maybe one more good decade left. I mean, how's that for uncomfortable?? I *do* expect to live to be at least 100, or well up in the 90s, but watching my parents slide that slippery slope -- I realize that the 70s and 80s and on up are most definitely not... easy. And I'm not ready, not for old age, not even for middle age. I hadn't expected to come into this feeling so *young*. I rather thought I'd be experiencing, not dignity exactly (because I'm not somber or well-behaved enough for that), but at least grace and warmth and wisdom. (But then when you're younger, fifty sounds *awfully* old. LOL!) And instead I still feel, embarrassingly enough, rather wide-eyed and even sometimes naive. Still wide open to the world and its wonders, and as if I can yet frolic and scamper about, like when I was twenty. But the sad thing is that I'm beginning to suspect that such attitudes aren't quite becoming anymore. Like I have to take my place among the middle-aged women of the world, or something.
Frankly, I'm baffled as to what to do about this. Guess I'll go to bed, then.
So today I had the unnerving thought that I have maybe one more good decade left. I mean, how's that for uncomfortable?? I *do* expect to live to be at least 100, or well up in the 90s, but watching my parents slide that slippery slope -- I realize that the 70s and 80s and on up are most definitely not... easy. And I'm not ready, not for old age, not even for middle age. I hadn't expected to come into this feeling so *young*. I rather thought I'd be experiencing, not dignity exactly (because I'm not somber or well-behaved enough for that), but at least grace and warmth and wisdom. (But then when you're younger, fifty sounds *awfully* old. LOL!) And instead I still feel, embarrassingly enough, rather wide-eyed and even sometimes naive. Still wide open to the world and its wonders, and as if I can yet frolic and scamper about, like when I was twenty. But the sad thing is that I'm beginning to suspect that such attitudes aren't quite becoming anymore. Like I have to take my place among the middle-aged women of the world, or something.
Frankly, I'm baffled as to what to do about this. Guess I'll go to bed, then.
