It's a trick, an illusion, maybe even magical.
I'm now the crusty old decrepit age of a whole sixty years of agonizing oldness.
I haven't become my parents, which is such a huge disappointment,
as I always wanted to be like them when I grew up.
Oh Lord! where has my life gone? What did you do to me?
Sarcasm is an age related thing? Don't know, don't care. But there it is.
I'll try to be serious here.
Old is a concept that is taught to you. A perspective.
As some of you alluded to. The only difference is experience.
You choose what you are going to do with that.
Some use it wisely, some use it towards hatred of themselves and those around them.
Some haven't a clue that they even have some. And everything in between all that.
You live your life with a passion for who you want to be. Not what is expected of you.
Not living up to the standard uniform of business can be a challenge. Just be better than everyone else.
But that kind of uniform living is just living. You go to work and go home.
Sometimes you do stuff with friends. Maybe have children (always a good time if you do it right).
Stable Sameness. It will bore you to oldness.
When ever you find yourself doing that, living that, you're not living up to your potential.
You're living up to some expectation that is an illusion.
That is the older people you see and fear you will become.
The fear that you talk about is the fear of just living.
What you really want is a life that centers around who you want to be.
Pursue that and you forget about the years that have gone by.
You can do the easy thing, get a job that's easy and boring and pays the bills with some left over for retirement.
Or do what you have a passion for. Learn from others that share that passion.
You might think of them as old or older, but you'll find that the passion doesn't have an age barrier.
Learn what it takes to be who you want to be, be good enough to become a teacher of that.
You will find yourself surrounded by others that want to learn, that don't care how old you are.
You will never regret aging, you will enjoy that you are always becoming better at being you.
There isn't a retirement for a life like this. The day may come where your body is giving out.
But you will have had a very rich and rewarding life.
You will always have someone who wants to know what you know.
You will never be lonely, which is one of your fears about growing old, isn't it.
Your fears of aging as a gender are unfounded. Gender becomes more of a nuisance as you get older.
It may not even be relevant by the time you get to be that age you fear.
The binary world of cis has created something that it wants as a stable sameness it can lean on.
How ->-bleeped-<-ing boring is that. Be the gender you want to be, you won't be bored by it.
In fact, that is a quality of someone who isn't afraid to be a step ahead of the crowd.
It takes effort, a will that is stronger than the one you have now. It will get stronger.
So will you. Others will see that in you, and they will be less concerned about your gender, age, etc.
Just by virtue of being here, talking about Androgyn non binary gender stuff,
shows that you don't want that uniform of life that so many 'boring and old before they know it' people, have.
Like Shantel, I am no older than my twenties, I have no good reason to be otherwise.
By the time I was thirty, I had done and seen more than the average boring person would do in a lifetime.
Sure, it wasn't all fun and games, it was damn hard sometimes. Some of it,...I wish had never happened.
But that is how it goes. I'm stronger for it. And a little more compassionate than I would be otherwise.
The next thirty years has had it's ups and downs, but it is rarely boring.
I hold my head up high when I walk down the street.
Only because I know who I am and how good I am at what I do.
That is why age is a trick, an illusion.
Maybe it is magical in it's own way.
But who am I to say? I'm just some sixty year old person.
Ativan
