Sunday, November 2, 2008

Gerascophobia

The fear of growing old.

I definitely qualify for this one, but not for the obvious reasons. I'm not that fond of my mortality, but I understand it. If death is really just a more violent type of falling asleep, I'll welcome it with open arms. I am pretty tired. No more bills. No more stress. Most importantly - no more fucking expectations.

But enough about how great being dead would be...

Since I'm turning 23 next week, the cold stark walls of reality seem to be closing in at a very distressing pace. No more can one say "When I get older I'll..." because one IS older. This is the time where I'm supposed to be super motivated and productive, right? I should be clicking my heels, sprinting at every opportunity like Jesse Owens. My education is complete and the world is my oyster! Huzzah! Huzzah! Celebrat good times. Come on.

No. Its not like that at all. And it never will be. That's why I started this blog with a musing on how great it would be to be dead. Mmmm.

Gaping natural disasters/political uprisings/nuclear wars aside, I pretty much know how my entire life will play out. Stroll through any local cemetary. Even better, watch "Death of a Salesman". The only thing I can say I really enjoy is being young. I like doing young people stuff. Being irresponsible, only having to worry about myself, and the like. In 10 years, I will not be young, thus I'm fearful to think that I probably won't be enjoying life very much. Now your older folks will say "Oh, you'll change". Like last week when I told my Uncle's girlfriend that I see no point in owning any pets and she said "Oh, you'll change". Or when I make it clear that I'd never want a girlfriend, a wife, children, a mortgage, and other very hackneyed shit. "Oh, you'll change". Great. Just fucking great. All of these opinions that I hold very sacred are met with "Oh you just say that because you're young, when you get older...." No. NO. NO. NO.

But it gets fairly obvious that everyone around me is going to fall into that category. It's almost like everything has already happened. Family members will keep getting older and dying. My friends will pocket their first big paycheck, get married, have kids, and move somewhere very boring to save money all in the same breath. Some will probably get killed in car accidents (doesn't everybody know someone who has died in a car accident). Some will just disappear. I'll probably be the funny joke they talk about at dinner. "Whatever happened to Josh?" they'll say smugly as they fork through peas and carrots. "Oh you know he still acts like he's 20" and everyone will have a good chuckle. All because I'm thoroughly unsatisfied with that happening to me. Yeah. Poor fucking me. Not wanting to grow up. What a novel fucking concept.

It saddens me that I know a lot of people who will probably have that exact conversation. I wasn't joking or being facetious at all. Let's say at best I get 60 years on this planet. When I turn 23, that leaves roughly 37 more years of mind fucking myself. I suppose if I got one of those nifty jobs with benefits, I could tune out, get fat, and coast all the way to the grave. I could talk about buying property, erectile dysfunction medicine, taxes, and other boring shit people talk about. CNN bored me when I was 5, it bored when I was 15, and it still fucking bores me. Yardwork sucked when I was a kid, so why the fuck would I want to buy a house? Oh, the equity? Yeah save all your fucking money so your fat kids can have a flatscreen. God forbid they watch their Pixar movies on anything less than a blue ray disc. Can you imagine a life where the highlight of your week was buying a new TV? Oh good fucking christ.

Admittedly, there's no right or wrong way to live your life. If you like middle management or painting houses, fucking one woman, being unappreciated by loud, messy children, then I suppose you're free to do that. It's just wildly depressing to me. I'll turn 23 and all of that shit is going to come clearer into focus. I can fight it off, but one by one I'll watch my entire social circle dry up as friends move on to duplicate their parents lives note for note. It may not happen tomorrow, but its going to happen. Worse off, I've been saying this shit my entire life. But 10 years ago I had that vague hope of "well, something will change" but as you can read, I'm still bitching so that must not be happening. I guess if I had a job, I wouldn't have time to think about this shit. Then again, when I was working all I did was have lucid sucidal fantasies, so I guess that's not the answer either.

I'm just very, very unhappy.