Burdens of Age

The burdens of aging are mainly the indebtedness of having lived. Lived at all. The burdens aren't the things most people consider them to be. Some feel burdened by things on the down side, but I feel wholly burdened by those people and times I loved and continue to love. But in a different way. I almost fall under the weight of love, my love of the life I have been so privileged to possess for a time. It used to feel like a very long time but looking back on life's pathway, it's rather short now and filled with beauty and affection both received and given, of memories of small objects and scenes and seconds you remember that become clearer and clearer. Wealth or comforts or possessions, once yearned over, don't really count for much. For some reason all of the bad stuff disappears and only the personally fine times of feelings and people and things, shine. It makes it quite wonderful to have these images to hold and sort through and savour.  It is pure joy. The incredible number of changes over time, the advancements in science and art and humanity, of generosity and modelling, are those that become huge and awe inspiring. Our so many human wonders to admire. The down sides, once intense, sort of drop or drift away as we approach our farewell date and what makes the brilliant "light at the end of the tunnel" is the good and beautiful and true things of our lives. It has nothing to do with riches or fame or status. All of that flattens into a great, sweeping plain like a two dimensional poster with your name somewhere on it. Everything like that doesn't matter at all. The things once we thought were so very important are mere print. That's why seeing your friends who are still alive and to remember with them, is so great a pleasure. They're not two dimensional.  It's why sillinesses such as "the best and the latest" are not that which you find most appealing as once you might have. Gradually, you see what you didn't see previously. You, in your aging, are equipped quite surprisingly  with a sense of new reality that those younger have yet to gain. They don't know about it. You do, but you aren't going to tell them. You want them to discover it someday just as you have this joyous moment. They, embroiled in the impetus of its day-to-day rigors, don't have time to sit and stare into the past as we do. This vision erases what was once so bothersome or challenging or we thought, vitally necessary for happiness. Happiness, now, is very simple. It's very easy and present. But it's a secret that only the aged share.  A lot of it is remembering those small moments that were rather fuzzy then, but are now so vividly coloured in mind and so suddenly important. "Ah", you think, "So that's what it all meant."