The panic of growing older - My thoughts hit me hard tonight

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Is a great Sunday today, though boring because of my own decision to stay indoors throughout, barely did I realize what I bargained for until it has struck.
How this thoughts about my life creeped inside my head is what I can't really give account of.
But surely do I know that it been lingering since afternoon, my unconscious mind has taken me round the horizons of my past experiences in life.
Unknowingly or will I say knowingly, the words of the famous poet during my time in school has found a place to stay in my head.

Few years ago I had to study a recommended text in school, it’s a poem from a brilliant poet titled “ The panic of growing older” the poem quietly and insistently portrays the ordeal, fear and anxiety that creeps in as one gets older using medical situation as a perfect example. back then I’d read and appreciate it literally trying to distill the various poetic devices, I criticized it merely as a work of art.
Fast forward few years after, I am beginning to experience the reality of the poet persona in various ways and form.

Below are the exact words of this poem;

By Lenrie Peters

The panic
of growing older
spreads fluttering wings
from year to year

At twenty
stilled by hope
of gigantic success
time and exploration

At thirty
a sudden throb of
pain. Laboratory tests
have nothing to show

Legs cribbed
in domesticity allow
no sudden leaps
At the moon now

Copybook bisected
with red ink
and failures –
nothing to show the world

Three children perhaps
the world expects
it of you. No
specialist’s effort there.

But science gives hope
of twice three score
and ten. Hope
is not a grain of sand.

Inner satisfaction
dwindles in sharp
blades of expectation
from now on the world has you.source

---

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Experience is another form of education.
The rate of expectations placed on me by the society, family, friends and even by myself,
The challenges and failures designed in-between achieving this expectations really, has showcased the reasons why many regret through or later in their life.
The pain, anxieties, disappointment and fear of going through life indeed can't be diagnosed in the laboratory.

Lenrie Peters’s persona in the panic of growing older is a classic representation of what really happens to a person. That poem to me is far beyond a metaphorical representation of anxiety or disappointment that accompanies aging.
The poem is urgent, realistic and deeply subjective. I relate to the poet persona now than ever. Growing older indeed comes with lots of expectations, hope, disappointment etc.
Reality is cold, it’s hard but it’s concrete, it’s true, I have to confront it, You have to confront it.

Childhood physical nostalgia lingers.
I hope that myself and everyone out there feeling the same cope with the hope that "better days are coming" and then living in the fullness of every moment of each passing day.

Love you all, happy Sunday...

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