At a wedding I went to recently I sat behind a woman holding a baby for the service. I couldn't help but notice how perfect and unblemished everything about the baby was. My arms are covered with flecks and hair and sun spots and little scars, all of which were drawn onto this perfect skin I had as a baby. I talked to an older woman recently who said she was around 90. I think it's generally rude to comment on older people's appearance, but generally they look very aged. More little sun spots and scars, little blemishes that life leaves on you. She was once a perfect baby, and once my age, with a comparable amount of stretch and sag and marks. People physically change quite a bit over the course of their lives. It's hard to come to terms with the fact that you're no longer the person you used to be. That your eyes look that much more tired, and that you'll never have your glow or your youth back.
I have a hard time imagining myself getting older. I have trouble imagining what next month will be like these days. But I know that no matter what, I will get older. The world and I will do irreversible things to my body. I'll have to live with these things, most of which I'll have no control over. There's a baseline sort of terror in watching yourself get older, your body slowly moving towards failure. It tears at your identity too, how other people see you, whether they think you're cute or are attracted or afraid of you. No child will ever again ask if you're a boy or a girl, because you're a man. It's hard to imagine what the self is outside of your body because it's contained in it, but it definitely exists, at least in our heads. I wonder how much of it is just socially acquired behaviors and ideas and how much is some sort of transcendental truth about oneself. And how much of that is defined by your body.
I wonder a lot that I don't think anyone can tell me.