What does it mean to grow older. I have found that no matter how old I am, and today I am 50, I always say I don’t feel that old. But what does that old “feel like?” Surely I am not the only person whose perception of age comes from our parents. I find it impossible to think that my parents concerned themselves at fifty with the things I do.

What book should I read first, there is not enough time to listen to new music, I cannot keep up with Netflix shows. My oldest son is off to England to study abroad, my middle son is questioning his major, and my youngest, my daughter, is trying to pass her driving test. I have NOTHING in common with my Father at this age.

My Father told me once that he did not have time to examine his feelings. He had seven children by the time he was thirty-three. I became number nine when he was forty-seven. Much of his life was lived before I was born. I know he worked a lot, he was a blue collar guy. He liked Westerns, Wrestling, Beer, and Cigarettes. By the time he was fifty two he had a host of illnesses that appeared rapidly in succession. Lungs, Heart, later Cancer, his life was stopped long before it ended. If he could see me now, could he ever understand the existence I have

And yet a year ago I was diagnosed with an adult onset genetic condition. An orphan disease, with little research, it is degenerative. One I have now found out that all of my siblings had a twenty five percent chance of getting. Yet none of them did. I’m glad they did not. I, being the winner, have limited mobility. I am on pills and painkillers.

I still don’t feel fifty. I love music, movies, books, and so much more. I enjoy my children. I cannot wait to be a grandad, ( though my wife says be careful what you wish for ) in short, I consider myself lucky.

My Father, with no time for, as he said, feelings, what must his experience have been for him? He was not a man of the mind so when he lost his body, did he feel old. Had he felt old before? When I, as a teenager, saw a broken down, grumpy man was he remembering a girl he once dated, a party he once went to, a sporting event he attended. I think of these things most every day.

What is it to be old? What is it to be sick? I still feel like I was twenty last week. Songs on the radio make me feel time move. Did this happen to my Dad or was he so closed off that life became a prison to escape.

I am not perfect, I get frustrated when I cannot do some things I always enjoyed or prided myself on doing. Still, in my head, I know how fortunate I am. My Father’s position must have been one hundred times worse. For all the empathy I have now, at the time I had little. It is not something to be proud of.

I still don’t feel fifty.