Not Quite Under Milkwood

I was absent the day the briefing was offered about growing old. 

I had successfully avoided the one about growing up (my wife and two children have paid the price for that truancy for many years). I didn't think it was that big a deal especially since aging happened in such small increments over a prolonged and protracted period. 

Wow, was I mistaken.
When I look at the grizzled mug of the geezer in the mirror every morning I sometimes wonder who that is as my memories of what I look like and the realities staring back at me are entirely different. 

Quite frankly, the only thing more demoralizing and depressing about what I now know about growing old (and fuck that whole 'growing old gracefully' bullshit) are the things I think I know about it, which ain't necessarily so.

  "Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night"

-bill kenny