growing old.
aging.
growing up.
maturing.
what do you think of when we talk about growing older?
Do you think of your young children learning to walk and talk?
Do you think of your adult children moving away or getting married?
Do you think of retirement?
Do you think of your parents changing as they age?
Do you think of you and how you will grace age?
Does it bring feelings of happiness and anticipation for the future?
Does age bring feelings of stress or anxiety of the unknown?
The idea of growing up is stuck in my head this week.
We have been going through a few things in my world to entice me to ponder the concept of age and life.
A few are optimistic and exciting, like our daughters growing older.
They are walking, running and talking.
(They are saying more works now like car,cookie, juice and duckie. Charlotte is walking and Chloe is running. )
Also we hired our first teenage babysitter for our girls.
This weekend we are going out for a few hours Saturday night and instead of asking our parents which is what we always do, we decided to hire a teenage girl who we trust.
Court and I were saying that it made us feel all grown up (as if being married and having twins was not enough) but for whatever reason the act of hiring a sitter made us feel 'all adult like'.
I really doesn't feel that long ago when I was getting calls from mom's to babysit their kids on Saturday nights.
These to me are positive, happy feelings of age and growing up.
It is exciting to watch the growth of my children intellectually, physically and emotionally.
But in my world some acts of aging do not bring such feelings of joy.
I have recently began noticing age in the people I love.
I watch my grandparents age and the idea that we are all delicate beings that do not last forever hits me like a ton of bricks.
Age has especially hit my grandpa and notice how father time has taken a toll on his body and mind.
I have to endure the feelings of watching the strong man who protected my mom, my sisters and all of my family with such vigor and passion, slowly let of go of his strength to the powers of time.
I makes me feel sad to notice that one of the smartest men I know sometimes can't seem to get his thoughts straight and gets frustrated.
It makes me feel sad to watch my mom, step dad, uncles, and aunts take care of my grandpa.
They all love my grandpa dearly and stay strong for his behalf, but I am sure it cannot be easy for them.
It is much harder for children to watch the grandchildren to watch.
We expect to watch our grandparents age. As children grandparents are always old and mysterious.
Their stories and grey hairs intrigue us a little children and we grow up knowing that eventually we will miss our grandparents. This though is a sad though for us grandchildren but it is more accepted from the beginning.
But it is always hard to watch a parent age.
They are our protectors and saviours.
Even of you step up to the plate gracefully to aid your aging parent it still is hard to watch and endure.
I also feel heartache for my grandma who has such a hard time watching the strong man she knows slowly weaken with the weight of his long existence.
She mourns her loss of the man she knew and the life she knew.
She has a lack of an outlet to express these feelings in a healthy way.
It is hard for her to care for him and accept his dependency.
This makes me sad.
I know that in life we live in a full circle.
We start as babies and children need to depend on others for our primal existence.
We slowly grow into independent people of society and flourish if given the right environment.
Eventually we come around to dependency again.
We need help with tasks before that were not a problem for us.
We cannot be alone.
As we age we seem to digress to a version of our inner children.
In my grandpas case, his digression seems to be accepted by him as he moves along.
He takes each step one at a time and though he seems to get frustrated now and again, he handles it the best out of anyone.
It is much harder for us. His family.
We have a hard time accepting.
We are losing something and cannot accept it.
Age can be a terrible and wonderful thing to watch unfold into the matrix of our lives.
It can mean growth and development, but it can also be understood as digression and dependancy.
We mourn the past and look to those very happy times.
We are happy in a certain space and time.
Why are you so cruel to take that away from us?
Just pause this moment time and lets stay here.
Stay here forever.
Happy and content.
Unfortunately that is not our option.
We have not control.
We only have our acceptance.
Just let it be.
Take in each moment with all the love and happiness that you can because the one thing we can count on is that we will never get this exact moment in time again.
I wish you all a wonderful day!
Much love,
Jessica
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