On getting old

We're all doing it. We're all getting older, one day at a time. Sometimes, though, you just feel its crushing weight a little more than usual.

I have now spent more than 26 years on earth. But the definition of a toddler, I am really old. For a teenager, I'm old. For someone in their 30s, I am still looking ahead. For someone in their 50s, I am just getting started.

For me, it feels like I am getting old and haven't even really started yet. Seriously, I am not even a productive member of society. I have been "in training" to make my contribution for MY WHOLE LIFE. I probably won't even start "work" until I am almost 28. It doesn't seem very efficient for society to be training me for half of my working life. I probably won't be working past 55, so I will really only be contributing to society (as opposed to being more parasitic, like now) for about 27 years. Can you really give back all you've been given in those short years? And as for the experience of it all, everyone's parents were right when they said that the time just goes by faster and faster.

From time to time, I think, "If only this course were over," or, "when I finally get posted, that will be it," or any of a variety of scenarios. But then I realize that this is the same thing I thought before. "Once I get to Moose Jaw," or "Once I get out of university."

Wisdom, and perhaps some solace, may be found in this:

For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. -Fr. Alfred D'Souza