What do you look forward to most about getting older?

Every birthday wish and shooting star from when I was 5 until when I turned 12 was wasted on asking to never grow up, never get older. And every year, my height increased, my body changed and no one noticed that I was secretly praying for the child in me, and in all of us, to stay.

I wished for what I knew I couldn't possibly have because I knew, even at five, that old age would be heartbreaking, terrifying and more painful than any skidded knee or torn elbow. I didn't want to sit in a wheelchair being pushed around by cruel nurses through dilapidated, off-creme-colored hallways. I didn't want to experience both the emotional and physical pain of lost friends, family and sanity. I wouldn't want a person to pass by me, casually glance over and interpret my expressionless, wrinkled, tired face and sullen, dim eyes to mean that I was simply tired and didn't mind my state. I would want them to know that my entire body and mind was raging against the plague that tormented my body, that I wasn't simply a flaccid, bored, dull thing honkered against a metallic moving chair. I had a soul; a lost one, perhaps, but a real one which was fighting desperately to get out.

As I started to get older, I realized that what I was asking for would require more than a miracle; it would require suicide, something that was never an option for me.

So even now, as I slowly age, year by year, I'm terrified of what old age means. I hear the colliquialisms people throw my way, "With old age comes wisdom", "You will grow, learn and become your own master", and mostly, people tell me of the wonder of childbirth and old age with your significant other.

I don't believe you.

I think I will wake up one day and hate it all. I will envy the beauty I lost, which some other unknowing girl found. I wlil hate all those who surround me for their inability to see the pain I'm in, to see how much I wish to be agile, passionate, and earth-changing. I will spend hours preparing for the day...hours that would have taken minutes when I was young.

I will sit on my porch looking out at the young knowing far more than they. And I will envy them. For if I could be young again, I would. If I could re-learn my lesssons, I would. If I could live and never lose my friends to old age, I would. But I won't because I must admit that I will eventually have to be old.

I had to admit to myself, at twelve years of age, that there is no star to wish away old age. There is no birthday wish that will stop every birthday thereafter. There is no hope or faith to cling to which will end the cycle of pain and knowledge that proceeds.

What do I look forward to most about getting older?

It's what I began to wish for after I turned twelve. I wished for the insight to change the world before old age crept into the tunnels of my mind and stole the life my veins had left.