I'm Thinking of a Number

I know every person on this planet at this very moment is the oldest they've ever been and the youngest they will ever be ... it's a constant duality which should keep us perplexed without end. We aren't, however - perplexed - because there are jobs to do for pay so that we can feed family and selves and keep us all in shelters with clothes, education and entertainment. We hardly think of the passing time, it's water moving swiftly under the bridge that divides life from death, and one drop looks much the same as the next. Unremarkable. Until we hit up against our self-imposed landmarks.

Birthdays.

When we're young, we take no notice of them except for the anxiously awaited cake and gifts. When a little older, we want to rush through them so we can 'grow up' and have all that freedom. When we're in youth, that span between 20 and 30, we start to take notice; our lives are changing fast as we start working, marrying, having children, and getting into huge debt with that first house. That little stream of passing time under the bridge has become swelled with years that suddenly carries us fast and furious through a decade with each year becoming more pronounced, more note worthy, until we think we're old ... at 25.

This is just a number, we old folk say. 50 is just a number too but it comes with failing eyesight, knees that sound like breaking stalks of celery when we use stairs, arthritis and children who are busy with work, marriage, children, houses and just now looking up to realize they are hitting the quarter century mark. Wide-eyed they are where I was a quarter century ago, wondering where the years went, feeling old, and beginning the mourning dance for their youth.

How can I let them glimpse the view of their place in the line of time from my perspective so they can understand just how young they really are? So they can see just how much time there really is and how precious it all is because I can't lie, it all goes by extraordinarily fast. But the water under the bridge can't be grabbed and held, it can't be stopped so we can inspect it's intricacy and wonder how it is unique to us. It is its nature to be elusive, and to pass by unnoticed. That's the way it is.

Now I know how my parents felt when they were 50, standing firmly within their well constructed boat and watched me, a newly sprouted seed, stretching along the edge of youth and balancing my boat in the waters of time. As they acknowledged my efforts with a sage nod, they knew .. each of us was feeling the oldest we've ever been, and the youngest we'd ever be ....