T I M E

Old. That’s exactly how my body felt when I woke up this morning. Gone were the days when playing basketball and going to the gym on the same day made me feel young. Now my most spritely steps are to the bathroom when my bladder screams for some relief. Aging is tricky. It’s definitely a mind game. And acceptance is a skill.

My hair is starting to become recluse and introverted, unwilling to fraternize, seldomly coming out to say hi. My digestive system is as fast as yesterday’s snail mail. My joints are like a couple in a capsizing marriage, constantly bickering and endless discord, the pain is internal with no sign of reprieve in the offing.

Bloating? Don’t even get me started! Back in my 20s I could eat a cheeseburger at 4 in the morning and have a flat stomach the next day. The utopia of a cheeseburger that used to comfort you in your 20s is long gone. Your thirties is a time of reckoning, saturated fat and calories are of dark side. The reaper of your aging metabolism has come to collect, and there is no negotiating from this point on. A cheeseburger at 4 in the morning in your thirties will bloat you like the Hinderberg on its final voyage, spewing gas and hot air for all the unlucky spectators and bystanders in the midst of your presence.

Middle age men and big bellies are the most common companions you will see on the streets, its like two best friends constantly going out for a stroll.

Why is time so cruel?

Youth fades and the body ages, there is nothing that can stop that. It’s something that we have to accept. 

Once we accept the carnage of time on our bodies, we start to see things that truly matter. Youth afforded us with the infallibility of innocence, it gave us a pass on all the bonehead mistakes we so bravely misconstrued as ‘cool’.

We look back and wonder how we survived those days when our comprehension about life’s journey was so shallow and juvenile.

Age changes your views; it gives you a deeper understanding of life, its trials and tribulations. The once ‘cool’ endeavors now become trivial and insignificant. We realize our mortality and the short time that accompanies it.

Hopefully for some, age ushers in maturity. Things start to change, family is paramount, we seek friendships that have meaning, and our profession is a source of pride. Now it’s not about the paycheck but the purpose, its not about what car you drive, but who’s in the car with you. Youth made you prioritize the material things; age makes you realize the materialistic nature of things.

To say that time flips the coin on us is an understatement. It seems time is omniscient; it is both friend and foe.

So how we use it, how we perceive life, how we prioritize our values, how we stand by our principles, how we treat others, is how time will judge us.

My mother once told me that I had an older brother, he moved on from this life soon after he was born. Its difficult to fathom how short his time was, or what his purpose might have been.

But one thing is for sure, T I M E is fleeting.

And it doesn’t matter how long you live, but the manner of how you live your life is what matters.