“It’s no fun growing old.” I’ve heard that comment a number of times from my parents, friends of parents, and even strangers who are facing their “golden years.” Years ago—when I was younger, more agile, and more invincible—I just accepted the comment with an unemotional but somewhat bewildered look, the same way someone accepts a comment like “It looks like rain today” when he has no plans of going outside anyway.
(I think Taylor Swift knows what I mean)
Of course, that was then, and this is now.
Approaching 40 this spring, I’m increasingly hearing that doom-filled phrase, It’s no fun getting old, in my own head. I hear it every time I use the computer and have to increase the font size 200 percent, when I look in the mirror and see more wrinkles and frailer (a more palatable way to say thinning) hair, when I enlist my older children to chase down my two year old, when I forget simple words like refrigerator or fish, when I enjoy a trip to the grocery more than a trip to Europe, or when I see an internist, gastroenterologist, and orthopedic surgeon over the course of six months. Given that I’m probably only half way through my life span, it’s hard to think that it’s going to go anywhere but downhill from here.
In fact, I was pondering how exactly un-fun it is to get old yesterday while driving and feeling the pain from an “I’m-too-young-for-a-bunion” bunion that I’ve been praying would just go away. It wasn’t going away and was actually feeling much, much, much worse. On the verge of tears, I caught a glimpse of my two year old having the time of her life in the back seat of the car, jamming out to nothing other than Smash Mouth’s “Allstar” (You know, the one that says, “the years start coming and they don’t stop coming…”). It’s true, and here’s a clip to prove it (though the little ham’s actual performance lasted about twenty minutes).
Watching her so young, carefree, and vibrant could have made me feel even worse that it hurts this former cheerleader to even think about attempting a simple cartwheel. But that was not the case. Something about seeing her at the exact moment I was mulling over my always-expanding list of infirmities created a surreal and intense feeling of joy inside of me unlike any I’ve ever felt. And I think I know why.
The old adage surmises “no pain, no gain.” The same holds true for the aging process. As life becomes harder physically and mentally, it also becomes easier to truly appreciate those moments—whether they are our own or others’—when it is not. Experiencing the juxtaposition between the good and the bad somehow offers a clarity of perspective that unbinds us from a life focused on self to one that is focused on the truer beauty in life, one more correctly focused on God.
So while it is indeed no “fun” getting old, perhaps that’s really the point. It’s not supposed to be fun and games, it’s supposed to be life changing. And only then can it really be life giving.
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