1184: Beautiful Old Age D.H. Lawrence: "'Beautiful Old Age'
D.H. Lawrence
It ought to be lovely to be old
to be full of the peace that comes of experience
and wrinkled ripe fulfillment.
The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life
lived undaunted and unsoured with accepted lies
they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins
in their old age.
Soothing, old people should be, like apples
when one is tired of love.
Fragrant like yellowing leaves, and dim with the soft
stillness and satisfaction of autumn.
And a girl should say:
It must be wonderful to live and grow old.
Look at my mother, how rich and still she is! -
And a young man should think: By Jove
my father has faced all weathers, but it’s been a life!"
I'll be forty-seven on my next birthday and I can honestly say that I am not looking forward to being that much closer to fifty. I am drawing nearer to that half century mark (sounds much worse when I say it this way) and I wish I had a do over. When I was a child I believed that by the age of forty I would be dead. Really, that's how I felt and when I actually pasted that mark of age I was surprised that life was still granted to me. I have come to realize that envisioning my death throughout my life has totally limited any aspirations I may have had for myself. I have nothing to show at life's departure that Yvonne was here. Others may beg to differ but I feel that I have walked this earth without leaving any footprints. I have not earned the gray hair on my head. It sprung up like measles when I was still a child and a lifetime of responsibilities were far from being envisioned. I have garnered no peace with growing old and I don't have a fallback plan. An expiration date still haunts me even now when I realize that I must form a plan of reinvention. The world's circumstances dictate this coming change. I can no longer rely on past experiences to mark my spot in a place that doesn't recognize the non-descripted aged.
