![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dreaming of growing old
Jul. 25th, 2024 10:20 pmI have two dreams. They are my biggest dreams that I'd trade almost anything to make a reality. The first, and biggest, is being able to stay young until the end of this world. To see everything it has to do, everything it will ever go through and remember, register everything. In a sense it's an inevitable dream, in another it's am impossible one. My molecules may live on, but "I", this person, this identity, simply can't. In a few decades or less it will be gone, only to be remembered. I hate that, but I have to accept it. I'll leave it to whatever beings I feed with my body to live through the future I won't be able to see.
My second dream, rather paradoxically, is growing old. First middle aged, then, the best of all: elderly. I do know it's not going to be great. I see my grandparents. They have so many health problems to deal with, so many kinds of pain, not just physical, but emotional. No matter how much lived experience you have, slowly losing your body still sucks. But I can't help but fantasize. I can't help but imagine being beyond life objectives, and work responsibilities, and personal improvement. I want to be at the end. I want to have reasons to look back. To know I'm a symbol of hope for young queer and trans people around me.
I imagine myself not worrying so much about the world. Not because I don't care, but because I know I'm past the age where I'm able to fight for it. I imagine myself smiling as I carry symbols of our own age into the future, as I let those young and curious know what came before their own era. I imagine myself curiously engaging with the new, whatever things that are so mundane to the adults and teens around me, but for me feel so novel. I imagine myself struggling with their technology, using it in ways that make them laugh and cringe. Maybe they'll like me for it the same way I like the old people I see in my life or online. I also see myself growing used to the death of my beloved friends. I see myself depending on others for help, maybe feeling guilty about it. I wonder if I'll become too unhealthy too fast, if I'll be satisfied with what I did while young, if I'll b prejudiced or wise. I just hope I'll be happy, and make others happy alongside me.
It'll be such a different kind of struggle than what I face now. For all I know I have so much time left, so much to do and accomplish. I won't have any of that. I'll simply be waiting for my death, knowing it's close, enjoying the little time I have left as best as I can with my decrepit bones and muscles. Maybe I'll devote my time to some nice kind of craft. Maybe I'll give away food and art for free. Maybe I'll actually be a witch and do spells to bring people hope. It's all so unsure. Will we even be around for me to reach that age. Will there be anyone to bring hope to?
The only possibility that despairs me is dying before then. If I can't live forever, I need to live to become old. And I'll enjoy it, as best as I can, be a light to whoever is around me.
My second dream, rather paradoxically, is growing old. First middle aged, then, the best of all: elderly. I do know it's not going to be great. I see my grandparents. They have so many health problems to deal with, so many kinds of pain, not just physical, but emotional. No matter how much lived experience you have, slowly losing your body still sucks. But I can't help but fantasize. I can't help but imagine being beyond life objectives, and work responsibilities, and personal improvement. I want to be at the end. I want to have reasons to look back. To know I'm a symbol of hope for young queer and trans people around me.
I imagine myself not worrying so much about the world. Not because I don't care, but because I know I'm past the age where I'm able to fight for it. I imagine myself smiling as I carry symbols of our own age into the future, as I let those young and curious know what came before their own era. I imagine myself curiously engaging with the new, whatever things that are so mundane to the adults and teens around me, but for me feel so novel. I imagine myself struggling with their technology, using it in ways that make them laugh and cringe. Maybe they'll like me for it the same way I like the old people I see in my life or online. I also see myself growing used to the death of my beloved friends. I see myself depending on others for help, maybe feeling guilty about it. I wonder if I'll become too unhealthy too fast, if I'll be satisfied with what I did while young, if I'll b prejudiced or wise. I just hope I'll be happy, and make others happy alongside me.
It'll be such a different kind of struggle than what I face now. For all I know I have so much time left, so much to do and accomplish. I won't have any of that. I'll simply be waiting for my death, knowing it's close, enjoying the little time I have left as best as I can with my decrepit bones and muscles. Maybe I'll devote my time to some nice kind of craft. Maybe I'll give away food and art for free. Maybe I'll actually be a witch and do spells to bring people hope. It's all so unsure. Will we even be around for me to reach that age. Will there be anyone to bring hope to?
The only possibility that despairs me is dying before then. If I can't live forever, I need to live to become old. And I'll enjoy it, as best as I can, be a light to whoever is around me.
