Old Age as a Byword for Fragility

As children, few occasions rival birthdays in terms of excitement and import. Christmas, maybe, which though glorious, we’re forced to share with others. Our birthdays are days only for ourselves. They are, in folklore and dreams, if not in actuality, occasions of mirth and merriment, of presents and sweet treats. Yet it seems the older we get, the more we grow dissatisfied with the passage of time. Even people in their 20s will shudder when being reminded of an upcoming birthday — I’m getting so old, they’ll lament, and with good reason. For what is there to look forward to in old age, in our modern perception?In a few months, I’ll turn 25. A quarter of a century. Closer to 30 from there on than 20, and implicitly, to my own demise. Yet arguably, it’s not death itself that terrifies, rather the certainty of what precedes it. To my generation, old age is nothing admirable.

Yes, we were taught to respect our elders, but more so out of pity than genuine regard. Be nice to Grandma, she’s got a bad hip. She’s lived more than you, and where once, that would’ve entailed amassed knowledge, now, it’s just a byword for fragility.We are careful around our parents and grandparents, and perhaps rightly so. As we get older, our physical bodies begin breaking down on us. The wheels keep turning, but they’re running out of steam, as the late Warren Zevon once put it. So we tiptoe around the grandmother with the bad hip, and the grandfather with the wobbly knees. We help with groceries, and roll our eyes when they fail to keep up with technology.

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