Aging is not a disease. None of us want to grow old but we have to learn a new way of dealing with it. If we treat it like a plague and attempt to deny it’s very existence, then in our avoiding we will slam into it like a brick wall.

I look at my pictures from 20 years back and miss the firm skin and not so puffy eyes. I miss not being able to eat 3 hot dogs and two ice cream cones in a sitting, without feeling guilty and regretting the excess when the heartburn develops. I miss being able to jog 8 miles nonstop. I miss feeling excited about the possibilities that tomorrow will bring and the belief that everything will be alright no matter how horrible today seems. These are the standards of youth that can never be regained by a new facial serum. No vitamins will bring the innocence back again. But is that really what we want?

When I speak today, I have something to say and I can say it with confidence. This is the truth that only experience can give. Would I wish to forget my knowledge? No! What I have learned cannot be unlearned and I don’t want to forget. My experience has taught me patience and kindness.

We all long to grow up. We want to learn. The inner drive to mature is strong. How can we not open the door and satisfy our curiosity? We can pretend all we want that we wish to stay young, but I don’t know a single person who can leave the door closed. We open the door to peek because that’s our nature. What does it feel like to be grown up? What does it feel like to have the answers? We are all intrigued by climbing to the top, by achieving and when we get there we want to shout for joy. We have done it! And our lives will never be the same. We now have experience. Others join in our cheering and congratulate us and silently envy us. They want it too. So why do we not do the same with age?

I once thought my dad knew all the answers. I’d ask him questions all the time. I was young and he seemed so wise. He read, he learned things and he encouraged me to learn. I worshiped him. As I grew older he told me that he didn’t have all the answers and that I needed to search for them myself. So I did.

As I learned, he didn’t lose his wisdom, but I gained some of my own.

If we look at faith, religion and God, it often looks like that child that worships her father. He knows so much. Maybe one day when we ask him a question he will also tell us to search for the answer ourselves. It’s possible that God is still learning. It’s possible that he wants to share experience with us. I don’t know for sure, but it’s possible God will still seem wise even as we grow old.

 “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Don’t exist.
Live.
Get out, explore.
Thrive.
Challenge authority. Challenge yourself.
Evolve.
Change forever.
Become who you say you always will. Keep moving. Don’t stop. Start the revolution. Become a freedom fighter. Become a superhero. Just because everyone doesn’t know your name doesn’t mean you dont matter. – Brian Krans http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/424703.Brian_Krans

“Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you do not wish to be one of the tortured slaves of Time, never be sober; never ever be sober! Use wine, poetry, or virtue, as you please. – Charles Baudelaire

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