Lately, I've had a lot of opportunity to reflect on how life changes as we grow older. My fifth wedding anniversary has been and gone; and we went to a gathering of old friends of ours a couple of weeks ago. As a group, we're mostly married, now, and with kids or wanting them; we have houses and mortgages; we drink less hard and go to bed earlier. The consensus was that we're all getting old, and that it's really too bad.
I will be turning 30 in a few months. Many of my friends have already passed that milestone. But the idea just doesn't bother me. No, not one tiny bit. Yes, really.
I'm not even really sure why something as innately meaningless as a birthday upsets people. Sure, we're getting older. Sure, we've changed. But it's not like you wake up one day and suddenly you realize you're not a kid anymore. It happens every second of every day, to every one of us. Getting upset about it won't make it stop; it'll just make it unpleasant. And why, I ask, is it such a terrible thing in the first place?
Does it make me so unusual that I am overall content with my lot in life? That I feel I've made the right choices so far? That I am happy with where I am?
Now, that's not to say that I don't grapple with the same spectre of mortality as everyone else. I worry about how Matt and Sasha could get by without me. I terrorize myself with thoughts of all the awful and unanticipated things that can happen to Sasha and to Matt, to my brother and parents, to my best and closest friends.
But there comes a point where fear can't rule your life. I think I learned that lesson a lot earlier than many people do, and maybe this is why I'm such an odd duck. Life is a risky endeavor. But it's going to happen anyway, so you may as well make the best of it.
I mean, when you take it to the furthest extreme, the stars burn out and die, galaxies turn and turn and collapse in on themselves, and our entire civilization had the breadth and scope of a Mayfly's life. It's all a matter of your perspective. Does this mean that our lives are simply not worth living in the first place?
No, no, and no, again. A cosmic-level disaster could befall us at any point. So could any of a thousand more pedstrian disasters. It's enough to make one positively nihilistic and very, very dull. But our species has made the decision to run with this thing and see how far we get, and we've gotten really quite far. We're built to think that life and love and happiness are important things.
So...important, they are. There's not a lot of hope of escaping biology, just like there's no way of escaping time. So I try to be happy, to make other people happy, and in general leave civilization a better place than I found it. Seems to work out pretty well for me.
Besides, it sure beats feeling sorry for myself.
My kitchen is: Pretty and clean and well-stocked with frozen foods. And...best of all... ANT-FREE! The cold and rain are good for *something*!
Posted by andrea at October 29, 2003 09:28 PM