The Protocol To Aging

I have noticed that people around me,in my life,and even me myself are aging. With the years come the symbols of experience gained and life lived. Less hair in certain places. More hair in others. Different colored hair growing in amongst your original color. Wrinkles that mark how much you have been blessed to smile and how much pain you have had to frown over. Reflexes not as quick. Vision not as keen as it once was. There seems to be a certain protocol to aging that everyone must follow. Some do it better than others and some do it way before they probably should. Some make it look good and actually begin to look better with the time that has passed and others just look old and tired. Some do what they can to reverse or slow down the signs of time with creams and lotions and cosmetic surgery and others just roll with it. No matter how you do it one thing is for sure,it's something everyone seems to be doing nowadays and for most it happens in a "pattern" of sorts.


Crows feet underneath the eyes. "Male Pattern Baldness" and graying. Skin sagging like gravity is taking out some sort of vendetta on them for all the years that it has just kept you on the earth without asking for anything in return. It just makes me wonder why it always has to happen in such a clear cut way? Why are the guidelines of aging so set in stone? I wish that we had some kind of a say in the manner in which we displayed our aging. I myself, at age 24 can clearly see the few short but intense years I have lived on this earth every time I look in the mirror. And granted I have had quite a life up to this point and am probably in pretty good shape considering. I know that heavy drug and alcohol use is not usually suggested as a way to stay looking young and vibrant. But at my age I already have gray hair in my beard and head. I have horrible vision. I have clearly forming wrinkles around my eyes,and I ache sometimes when I move. How did this happen? Now I am in no way trying to complain or sound un-grateful because I know that I could be a lot worse off. I am now clean a little over six months and in very good shape from working out as much as I do. But it just seems like I should have thought ahead a little more right?


I just thank God Almighty that I am not going bald! I have a good friend who will remain nameless who is about my same age who I have known for a number of years who is going bald. His father has been "George Costanza Bald" for as long as I have known him and my friend is going down that same road of "Male Pattern Baldness" and although he is still a very good-looking guy it just seems so crumby that no matter what he does, or what he has done, he will have to follow "a pattern" for his aging. He has had a different life and different experiences from that of many other bald men and yet in a few years he will just be lumped into the same category or demographic as that percentage of the male race that goes bald. Why don't we get to choose how this happens? I mean let's say that he is just destined to go bald,no matter what. His Grandfather went bald,his Father went bald,he is just going to go bald. Why does he have to do the whole "Male Pattern" thing on the top of his head and nowhere else just leaving a
'coulda sac" of hair? Why can't we all just go bald on one side of our heads? Or like, we can't grow sideburns anymore? Or if we go bald it's just in a star or peace sign design on the back of our heads? Everyone is unique right? Why does everyone have to bald the same? And why do some people go just clean bald down the middle and others get that little "Colonial Sander's Tuft" thing right up in the front? I know it looks cheesy but there are a lot of straight up bald guys that would kill to look like the Colonial.

How come instead of the middle of head it can't just be the sides only? So you know that someone has gone bald if they have a mohawk? Oh how much better it would be if had some sort of say in the affects we display as we age. Like gray hair. I have a beard right now. I grew one the last month I was in jail but could not really tell that there was gray in it then because of the poor quality of mirrors available there. But when I got out I could see the little silver slivers in and amongst the rest. I have since shaved that beard grown in jail in an attempt to get rid of things I had when I was in jail. I then grew what is on my face now, "Th Freedom Beard". I have always had dark blond hair,and my Dad had brownish red hair and a red beard with a lot more gray in it now. So my beard grows in like a rainbow coalition of facial hair. I have patches of red, patches of blond, and then little flecks of gray here and there. I don't know why but right at the corners of my mouth is where it is easiest to see the gray. It just kinda looks like I have eaten frosting and didn't get all of it out. Now why does that too have to happen the way it does? Why not instead of random patches of gray hair it can just come in like on each side of my face in the shape of my initials? Or like an anchor or lightning bolt? How cool would that be? If on either side of my face was red and blond hair,with frickin' gray lightning bolts doing there thing on my cheeks! Why can't that be a reality? And why does it always have to be gray hair? Why can't it be pink? Or purple or dark blue? I mean at least black hair right? How cool would it be if we could just decide what color hair we would start growing once we started aging?


I only bring this whole subject up because I feel like I am getting older sometimes and then when I look in the mirror it doesn't help. I know some of the older readers would tell me I am being silly, and you would probably be right, it is silly. I am almost 25, I am tall and reasonably healthy, I am not married, single, and have my whole life ahead of me. But I have a whole lot of life behind me too which when reflected upon can really make me feel older then I am. I have done more stuff in twenty four some odd years than some people do in twice that time. I have experienced things and put myself through things that drastically speed up the aging process. Now no matter what I do there is no reversing some of that. Although I wish I hadn't have done a lot of that stuff, it is what has led up to me being the person I am today. The things I have learned and gone through,the moments of great happiness and long months of pain are all together in sort of book that it my life and the more this journal is written in the more worn out the cover gets. I guess the point I was trying to get across by writing this is that no matter how young I should feel, I have earned every gray hair, every small forming wrinkle, every ache and every squint. And I am thankful that God has given me all of these things instead of deciding to take them away for the way I abused the gift of life I was given. The truth is I have a lot to be thankful for, and I don't feel old all the time. I have my days where I look better than other days, and on those days I don't feel so old. And on those days I am even more grateful for all that my good and gracious God has seen fit to bless me with. And you know what? It's all good. Some chicks really dig gray hair. I just thank God I am not bald!