6.29.2026 – older people know

older people know
that they are not going to
become young again

Adapted from the line, “Young people seem not to know that they are going to get old, but older people know that they are not going to become young again.”

From Off to the side by Jim Harrison (Atlantic Monthly Press: New York,2002).

Then a few lines further down the page, Mr. Harrison warns, “There is a specific melancholy to hardship that accrues later as a collection of gestures, glances, and dire events.”

Holding my grandson, Ian, I was thinking of that bit of writing.

I was thinking that this little guy has no idea he is going to get old.

Using the word “old” as a state of being as in ‘old people old’.

Ian will get older and we all know that, but Ian being OLD?

Then there is me in that picture.

Certainly not young.

And very much assured that I am not going to become young again.

But then again, I live in a place where the median age is 64 so I am middle aged and I do see a lot of people who are both old and much older than I am.

So I feel young at least, young enough and as for knowing I am not going to become again?

I am sure that wouldn’t go through all of this all over again for anything.