WHEN I was young, I was always full of fire and adventure. Most times, I felt fearless. Today, I can still light a fire and put my adventure boots on but I have lost my sense of fearlessness.
Somehow, the more you know, the more you fear.
Ignorance is bliss, they say. So is naivete. But age and adulting mercilessly strip you of your innocence rather quickly. After you have lived through the good, the bad and the ugly, you cannot un-live what you have already lived through.
You have loved and lost. You have tried and failed. You have trusted but been lied to, deceived and betrayed. With age comes the realization that all is not always fair in love or war. Hence, the sarcasm but also the fears.
Youth makes you feel invincible.
You can party for three nights and still go on for another three. Your energy is boundless. Your thirst for meeting new people, bottomless. Today, one party in three months is more than enough for me. And I don’t really feel the need to meet new people.
Age has a way of making you selectively social.
Sometimes, I despair in the reality of my failing memory, waning energy and decreasing productivity. Maybe, it’s a phase—I tell myself. Or maybe, I’m in such deep denial. It’s really downhill from here—my mind, my body, my capacity to do anything in this life.
Age has a way of making you feel vulnerable.
Sometimes, I fear I will wake up one day and find I have lost my mind—that I have gone mad or have forgotten everything. Completely. When your mind goes, is there some way to bring it back?
Maybe that is why I write so feverishly—I am frantically trying to save my future wandering self.
I fear, one day, I can no longer remember what my life was like—what I thought, how I felt, what gave me joy, what brought me grief, what I was passionate about, what broke my heart, what brought meaning and magic to my life.
Hence, I write. Because I want to remember it all—the joy, the pain, the grief.
When I read my words one day, will I know they are mine?
It’s not age I fear. It’s losing my mind, my sense of self, my sense of wonder, my sense of adventure, my hopes, my dreams, my integrity, my tenacity, my passions, my convictions, my will to live, my faith in God and in humanity.
I want to grow old, joyful not cynical. I want to grow old, still believing in the magical. And I do. I still believe in God. I still believe in love. I still have faith in humanity. Despite the odds. Despite the thugs.
I have lost my sense of fearlessness. But perhaps, in its place, I can find courage. Despite what I see. Despite what I know. Perhaps, despite all my fears, I can find the courage to carry on. Courage, after all, is not the absence of fear but the making of action despite fear.
Easter for me, is always a time of reawakening.