What a Drag It Is Getting Old

Getting old is not a crisis. It is a slow-motion systems failure.

Time stops cooperating. Monday insists it is Wednesday. Tuesday disappears entirely to avoid answering questions. The calendar keeps showing up with confidence, which feels insulting. Time no longer advances. It drifts, loiters, forgets why it entered the room.

Memory follows suit. What was once a vault is now a revolving door that never locks. Passwords dissolve mid-thought. Names hover just beyond reach, familiar but unreachable, like a word you almost remember from a dream. You adapt. You ask people whose names you cannot recall about their dogs. Dogs’ names are reliable. Humans’ less so.

Language erodes in public. Ordinary nouns refuse to report for duty. You circle them with approximations. “The thing that happens” replaces “plot.” Silence fills the gaps without apology. It does not save you. It exposes you.

The body stops pretending to be on your side. It no longer obeys. It negotiates poorly. Conditions arrive in clusters, each with paperwork. Medication becomes ritual. Miss a dose and pay later. Take it twice and pay sooner. Energy must be rationed. Errands require strategy. Chairs become landmarks.

Independence thins quietly. Ladders feel irresponsible. Night driving feels reckless. Confidence shrinks to the size of what you can still manage without witnesses. Every unfamiliar phone call carries threat. Trust becomes a liability. Isolation begins to resemble safety.

The mirror introduces delays. The face looks familiar but altered, like a photograph retouched by someone who did not like you much. Recognition lags. Identity loosens. You study the stranger until agreement is reached.

Mortality stops being abstract. It stops waiting its turn. It is not death that unsettles you. It is the mechanics. Pain. Timing. The possibility of being present for it. Meaning sheds ambition. Ladders lose relevance. Legacy feels optional, memory unreliable.

Stillness remains, but it is not comforting. It is accurate. Dignity becomes maintenance. Humor survives, but it sharpens. Curiosity narrows, then focuses.

The world will forget. You will forget first.

For now, you are here, holding a mug you did not mean to fill, standing in a room you entered for reasons that no longer matter.

It is not enough.

It is what is

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