Winter Brings Throughts of Aging

12.11.12

Do Not Lament the Passing Time

  

Time makes no concession for me,

nor does it care that I am fighting its relentless forward march.

Try as I might to ‘be in the moment’,

it seems to me that as soon as I am aware of that moment,

it has passed me by and I am wondering what I may have missed!

Each day I awake and am stunned that I am already getting up for yet another week of work, when it seems like the much-longed-for-Friday had just arrived!

I share my experiences with friends and co-workers

and suddenly realize that I am speaking of events which are twenty years past –

though they feel as if they are of newer stuff.

I begin to see the march of time played out on the faces of the famous and the popular and,

either refuse to see it in my own face,

or I am looking at myself through rose-tinted glasses.

A graying beard and salt-n-pepper where dark brown was so prominent are the only signs I’m aging!

I don’t have wrinkles, and my chin is still that: SINGULAR,

And while I was never muscular, I can still see definition in my frame,

in spite of my growing paunch.

But I AM getting older.

My body – the unseen parts – my bones, joints, brain, vision, and yes, memory

are all beginning to make the change that tells me I am in the beginning of decline,

and can anticipate the autumn of my life.

I am getting older.

Time does not pity me – nor does it seem to even notice I am here.

I try to redeem the time, because I know that MY time is fleeting,

but I find that I am continually being passed by the sands flowing through this mortal hour glass!

But wait – aging isn’t dying!

Getting older doesn’t mean getting worse!

Would I rewind my days and relive the moments of my life? Never!

I am a much better man as I am!

I am a much wiser man at this time of life!

I am a much kinder man, and a more caring man than ever I was before!

Would I dare to trade who I have earned the right to be

for one more decade, one year, one month, or day? No!

I have paid the price for my gray hair and my mellowed heart and peaceful mind.

I would not cast these gifts upon the tide of time and ages

and force myself to pay the price already paid.

I will age.

Time will continue, and I will redeem my hours as I may

and not lament the moments which pass me by.

Instead, I will capture those moments with pen and paper,

and I’ll hold them captive on a page,

and thereby live forever!

© 2012 by Michael Hunter