I read a couple of years back that the woman Byron Katie said that she was having the time of her life watching her body fall apart. I admire that statement and the idea of paying interested attention to just how life, the body and its use unfold. Yesterday, I read that Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice answered a reporter's question "What is wrong with you?" saying "What's wrong with me? I am old and I am coming apart." Today, I learned of the Nina Lorez Collins book "What Would Virginia Woolf Do?" subtitled "And Other Questions I Ask Myself as I Attempt to Age Without Apology".
I benefit from Marshall's picture of "coming apart" and Collins' "aging without apology." I haven't actually done much coming apart but I have had a little of that, what with a few operations and surgical removal . It seems more likely that parts approach failure or partial failure, like an engine that doesn't run as well as it used to since it has worn and torn. I like reading of "aging without apology". I want to be accepting of increasing limitations and decreasing capacities.
Aging happens rather quietly and many of the effects are easily noticed until they add up a bit. Birthdays may bring former abilities to mind when it becomes clear they have modified. Wrinkles, balding, slumping posture, increasing weight seem to be decreasing my attractiveness. I think I can quietly take pride in these achievements of aging but maybe I should apologize for not being young and spry. It seems like a hard choice: keep aging or die. I haven't died but it doesn't seem very promising so I guess I will continue to wrinkle and fatten.
