enter stage left: Old Age

"twenty-nine years and my life is still
trying to get up that great big hill
of hope
for a destination..."
(slightly paraphrased, 4 Non Blondes - "What's Going On?")

Happy Birthday to me! So this year's "big day" is bittersweet: sweet because I'm in New Vrindaban with my family, getting blessings from wonderful devotees, constantly being reminded of the important things in life; bitter because I suddenly feel old and a bit alone. I know, I know -- silly, right? 29 is hardly senior citizen material, and I have many loving friends and family members to be thankful for. Except that, no matter how hard I try, somehow I just can't shake the feeling.

When I was younger, I used to love my birthday... the excitement, the attention, the feeling that I was one year closer to whatever it was that I was rushing toward. But today, I'd just as soon as forget the whole thing. Not that I'm going to wear all black and write melancholy haikus about despair -- it's just that it suddenly feels silly for me to get excited about a day designed to recognize that I am getting older. It feels sort of like a shirt that doesn't quite fit anymore, uncomfortable in ways that the casual observer can't notice but that pinches the person wearing the shirt.

Last week I found a few new grey hairs. My body aches in ways that I can't find rational reasons for. I have to watch what I eat, and pizza-eating contests have been replaced with worries about how I'm going to digest all that cheese.

It is life -- dehino 'smin yatha dehe, kaumaram yauvanam jara -- Krishna explains in Bhagavad-gita that the soul passes through different bodies even in this one lifetime, from babyhood to boyhood to youth and then old age.

There's a diorama display called "Changing Bodies" that makes the rounds at Hare Krishna traveling festivals. It depicts the soul's passage through various stages of life and finally to another body at the time of death. I can remember being a kid and analyzing the various figures to see which stage I was in.

I guess the problem with getting older is the awareness that it brings, however subtle, that Mr. Old Age is just the opening act for the Big D. Is that what we're all rushing toward?

And maybe that is where the cake, ice cream, games, and gifts come in -- maybe we need them to balance out the cold, hard facts. Maybe.

"Because I'm self-absorbed, I get upset
Mad at the world, how could they forget?
I was alone at birth, I'll be alone at death
Hope I won't be alone at my final destination...

Birth's a costume with a genetic script
We play some role that we'd like to fit
And never admit that we're full of it
And live life in some sort of dazed hallucination
I'll never lament because life is brief
Our bodies are changing like the autumn leaf
It's said that time is the greatest thief
And beats and cheats this entire population."

(Shelter - "Alone on my Birthday")