Wrinkle Today, Fold Tomorrow

Last night I was sitting with my son.  With fourteen years of age under his belt he was responsibly doing his homework while I at forty-four I was playing a video game.  I was hacking my way across Oblivion when I felt his finger touch the skin behind my ear.  I imagined I must have had some ugly black piece of crud, perhaps a remnant of nuzzling with the dog. 

"I don't like that."  He said.

"What is it?" I asked him. I wondered, did I have a cancerous spot or something? 

He pushed his finger against my skin again pulling it flat.

"It's a wrinkle.  I don't want my pop to grow old."  He said hugging me.  "I have gotten used to the age spots you used to not have yet now do but I don't like this wrinkle."

He noticed the distress on my face and added in a consoling way, "I guess you are only in your forties Pop, you are not that old."

When you are a child everything seems new.  The girls you know have skin still flat and smooth, not worn by the torment of time.  The boys have not accumulated the lumpy fat deposits that just never seem to go away.  While everyone around you is aging faster then you can imagine, your own body is changing so fast time seems to stand still.  Anyway, they are not changes from age or abuse like we older folks suffer, they are the changes of a child becoming an adult. Of a son becoming a man. 

No one understands the impact of aging better than those that are feeling it.  Every day the body seems a little less supple, less willing to flex.  Joints creek and little pains emerge for seemingly no reason at all.  We look in the mirror and see the once youthful reflection is gone, replaced by lines, creases and bags of skin.  For many men, beautiful manes of hair have vanished replaced by our round and bumpy heads we knew were there but never had a chance to see.

Some fight age with every treatment they can, others embrace it.  Still others quietly lament the loss of our youth.

Life is an hour glass and as the sand slips away so does our  existence.  There are some things like a child we want to hold onto and never let go.  Yet as our child learns to accept our aging we learn to accept the loss and innocence of their youth.  Both fade as quickly away as life converges and like a lump of clay is molded into a different shape.

I have a Swiss friend in her 60's now.  She is beautiful in every way.  She cherishes life and is saddened as she feels the window on her life closing.  I love to be with her because there are flash moments when the little girl within her pops out.  I remember a day when she was at my house and found me taking a few shots at a basketball hoop.  She seized the ball and commenced shooting.  This brilliant flash of childhood determination and ultra competitiveness suddenly emerged.  It was as if for a moment in time she was a young girl once again.  My wife, son and I all watched, all equally in love with this woman and her inner girl.

One thing that can be said about feelings of age is that it is universal.  We all feel the same pains and same loss.  Yet hidden within those lamenting the shortness of life is the reality of how much they love life itself.  These are the people that cherish every morning they wake up out of bed, take a deep breath and relish the world around them.

Perhaps Asian society has it right.  They pay reverence to those with age finding the wisdom that exists within.  The lines of the face are not simply wrinkles, they are badges of honor.  They are the human equivalent to a deep canyon where the strata of ages is clearly defined. 

With these thoughts in mind I turned to my game and ventured through an ancient castle leaving mountains of bones in my wake.  At least for a moment, I felt young again.