I have the honor of working in hospice, and don't consider someone 'old' until they've hit their 90s - so at 44, I don't imagine myself as actually old. But, I'm certainly getting older. Most people would agree as far as the physical part of getting older being not fun at all - that becomes clearer every day. I joke that I'm meeting all the cliches - bald, need to lose weight, aches and pains. Like, really bad aches and pains in my shoulder and knees, though not constant.
Having lost my dad back in 2017, and having a lot of
health struggles with my daughter, and finding that giving plasma twice a week
is one of my few social engagements outside of work (it's really not even a
social engagement) - and missing doing things with friends but recognizing that
everyone has a million things going on as we get older - I often find myself
trying to somehow revert back to childhood. Rather, I find myself lost in
the (good) memories of being a kid, having a loving home with parents who gave
a lot of great experiences to myself and my sister - and desperately missing
those moments.
In the past year I've re-captured two of my childhood hobbies - remote control
cars and Space Legos. Both are a lot of fun to play with, but also
painful - it makes me deeply miss doing those things as a kid without the
concerns of adulthood. So I both love it and also recognize how much life has
changed (as it does) since then.
As we work on helping support our daughter, I've grown what I call my 'depression
beard' - because I just have been too overwhelmed to do anything about
it. And as I am over 40 now, it was time that my eyes - which have always
worked very well - to stop working at close distances. I will say that I
do like my progressives though, and it's nice to be able to see again.
That being said, growing way more hair on my face than I ever have, and now
wearing glasses full time, my appearance has changed sort of dramatically in
the past months.
This photo is expressing the passing of time, by showing a current
self-portrait of my holding one of my first every Space Lego sets from when I
was 4 or 5 - and my vivid memory of first playing with it and how different
life was then.
I still have a lot to be grateful for - but it's also healthy to recognize
change and that change can be painful and difficult. Pretty much everyone
knows this, and everyone could put themselves in a similar self-portrait with a
similar toy. So I welcome you to do so while taking a minute to look at
my photo here.
