On getting older

When I was young,  nobody told me what getting older was like.

My grandparents had the usual complaints. Lumbago. Failing eyesight. Being ignored. Awake all night.

Some said our elders were all-wise and all-knowing.

I never thought I would feel l wise like Dumbledore or that, instead, age brings as many regrets as it does. But I look back and see what I shouldn’t have done or could have done–and that I should have learned to forgive.

FDR was President when I was born. Did you suspect that? Most people don’t because they’ve forgotten FDR and history in general. At the time, I didn’t know he was President or that Truman dropped the bombs. I never forgave Truman. My first knowledge of world events came during the Korean War. I never forgave anybody for that mess–or Vietnam, either.

Looking back takes time because it’s a long trip. I do remember reading All Quiet on the Western Front and knowing–even as I read it–I would carry the scars of that story forever. That book is one reason I became a pacifist. I’m not sure about everything I think I see while looking back because I’ve used so many of my personal stories in my fiction. So I wonder, did that really happen or did I make it up. Most of the people who could answer that question are gone or, perhaps, fictional. In my youth, the KKK was real and my first real fear. They were everywhere. They burnt a cross on my minister’s lawn. All that was too evil to make up so it made its way into my books. I changed the names of the people I knew who were members of the very visible invisible empire. The same goes for the real people in my Navy experience.

My writing output has slowed down with age. I didn’t see that coming. In some ways, I’m just too tired to slog through the real and imagined memories anymore. I think that happens to a lot of people who were born when FDR was President. Hmm, I might be making that up.

–Malcolm