It's scary, to think of growing old and dying. And maybe I am paranoid because of that essay I read, The Way We Age Now. The gruesome detail s of our teeth and gums literally falling off like ripe fruit on a tree are terrifying. Is our body a tree and everything inside it fruit, just waiting to fall off naturally or to be picked forcefully? Are we time bombs? Why can't we hear our ticking? Why can't we know when our time to implode is? I'd rather not know, but the thought of growing old makes me not want to live. Isn't that backwards? We must be born, live our lives and then die; that's the way it works.
I have extreme anxiety now and I don't want to think about all the things age could do to me. Some people get diabetes, heart problems, false teeth, a fake limb or a synthetic heart. How do I know if any such thing will happen to me? I'm perfectly fine right now, but give it a few years and I'll soon be withering. It doesn't make sense. I'm 16 years old and I'm deathly afraid of death. I'm 16 years old and I don't even so much as have a cavity and I'm worrying about my gums falling out. ..
Decades ago the life expectancy was less than half of what it is now. Something has definitely changed. We are freaks who have it way better than our ancestors, but we still want to live longer and never grow old. We have medicines, machines and many new technologies that let us prevent diseases or at least let us acknowledge that they are there and stop them before they take over. We have dentures for when our teeth fall out.
Every day, including this one, I think about the future and what it holds for me. I need the future. I need the next few minutes to pass so I can get out of here, the library at school, where I'm writing this. I need the next year and a half to pass so I can be done with high school. I need the future, I want the future, I'm afraid of the future. Doesn't that seem wrong?
The bell has rung, the future is now closer.