The older I get, the more my loved ones become a reminder of mortality. I can’t help but notice the steadily appearing signs of decline. In an age when the days of even the most obscure lives are as thoroughly documented as any celebrity’s, the creeping decay is impossible to ignore. The pictures make a flipbook of entropy in action. I can see the hair shedding from scalps like the crumbling leaves falling from autumn trees. I can see bellies extending and once taught skin wrinkle, and sag and bright, youthful eyes darken and sink. Even the most beautiful of them can’t completely cover the corrosive effects of time.
I see people online I haven’t seen in person in years. A few minutes of exploring their photo albums, I can fill in the years I missed but can only speculate on the details. These friends, acquaintances, and family members are now mere abstractions.
These phantoms were from a time closer to the beginning of my life, and now as I approach the middle, I can see the steadily approaching end.
They might as well already be dead. They have passed from my life forever. like the dead, they exist only in pictures. These phantoms were from a period of my life closer to the beginning. Now, as I approach the middle, I can see the steadily approaching end.
Time is whittling away my world. Every year it gets a little smaller, and the forking paths in the road of life narrow down to a single roadway to oblivion.
