"Grow Old" (Prose Poem)

It seems we hear it every day. "Be young." "Use age defying makeup." "Discover the fountain of youth!" "40 is the new 30!" Will Smith once said that parents just didn't understand and rock 'n roll 80s icons always told us that if it's too loud, then you are just too old! We live in a culture of wrinkle creams and erection pills, weight-loss schemes and Botox injections. It is a world where if you're gray-haired, you're thought not be able to get a date and if you're bald, well, then your life is said to be over. Yes, thin is in, and plus sized is any woman above a size 6, a world where cartoon children replace adults with better, more fun cloned versions of their annoying parents. It is a neighborhood where Mr. Rogers has moved out, and Lil' Wayne has moved in, in his place because all anybody really wants to do is just party. We want to live too fast and too furious, make free love and easy money and to retire early.

But for me, I want a long life and a strong life, gray-haired and tired from all the life I've lived and all the time I'm given to my children. To me, a bald head is a mark of experience, nature's own tattoo. I want my kids to be able to recognize me as Daddy from my hair alone. I want good credit from having controlled my spending in my 20s and I want to stay in shape not for the sake of youth, but for the sake of health so I can play with my children in middle age, so I can be old and wise with a child's eyes. I want to live with a youthful heart and an educated mind that remains sharp when needed and youthfully exuberant in the face of adversity! I want to be the grandpa with the old stories of war and peace and Old Navy fleece and iPods. I want to tell tall tales of Nintendo as if they were written on cave walls, because my child will have never seen such primitive tools and for him to play and think it's cool, and think it's cool to go to school and learn from his past to better know that his present is a gift to his future... and that it's okay to let that family tree grow and grow and grow, and that with old age comes the realization that you have outlasted those who were not strong enough to make it. So, I will tell him to make it! Make it! Make it a life! Make it a good one! Make it real! Grow old!

Learn more about this author, Michael LaPenna.
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