Wither

Today, I saw an old lady trip and fall. She merely tripped on one of those cement things on the ground that you see in parking lots. As I was helping her up, I was thinking: had it been me, I'd have been able to break my fall and catch myself. I would be able to pick myself up without help. Most likely, I would not be bleeding from my mouth and nose.

I will be in her shoes someday. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

I used to volunteer at a hospital sometime back. Nothing too fancy, just the regular, bottom-of-totem-pole kind of thing. The ward I worked in had people all recovering from some sort of heart surgery. Stitched gashes down the chest and old age were always the common features. I saw them everywhere. Everyday. For six months. That is when I first noticed the entertwined infirmity and old age.

Among other things, I used to deliver the mail to the patients from the receptionists desk. Most of the time, they weren't able to open these themselves because weakness, and sometimes, arthritis. At other times, they were unable to see, or read. I read them their letters. I watched them react to those words someone had scribbled on a fancy piece of paper. It made them so happy, so sad, so longing. They were dependent on me for the knowledge of those letters and for all those emotions. The more I saw this, the more afraid it made me.

I don't want to be indisposed. I want to be indispensable. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Old age is the single most daunting disease out there, at least to me. There is no drug, no treatment out there that will help me. With old age will come infirmity, weakness, dependency, and many other things that I am too afraid to list here. I don't want to be any of that. I want to age gracefully. I want to die before I lose my memory, before I need help going to the bathroom, before I am forgotten. I want to be that sassy old woman that I worked for at Merck. Very learned, nurturing, funny and knows how to get her way with a smile. I wonder if in her world, old age is a disease.

There is never enough time and there never will be. For me to be someone, anyone. To be enough. All I have is now, and whatever I am now. I can take it, or leave it. Learn now, do now, fly now and fall now. My body is one of the greatest instruments I will ever own. So is my mind.

But they will both not last. Someday, my knees will give way from under me and I will sink. My vision will blur. My memory will fade. Time corrupts all and it is on nobody's side. It's us versus time. And we are not going to win.

"Nothing of me is mine to keep, other than memory."

I better get going. Tick-tock, tick-tock.