Our World Might Be Getting Smaller But We Aren’t
On Watching My Mother Grow Older
For most of our lives, the world around us grows. We step out our front door and see a roaring rousing cityscape that goes on forever. Roads heading out east and west. A view that extends to the horizon as birds and airplanes fly overhead and life travels at 100 MPH.
But as we grow older. As our dreams are seized and set aside and new ones are slow to replace them our world begins to shrink. Our choices become less exotic and closer to home and we spend more time wondering how much things have changed. Everything appears to be slowing down.
Over her long life, I watched my mother age and fight the encroaching sameness all around her. Like a wilderness that was once miles away, it grew to within a few feet of her back door and though she was always thankful that she was still there to take in the view — it saddened her. The clubs and social centers she walked to and spent hours chatting, dancing, and playing cards with the ladies slowly closed down and became something else, something more in-demand.
A daycare facility, a youth center for teens to gather and keep themselves amused. A dollar store where the elderly walked the aisles, pushing small baskets filled with things they didn’t need, not really, but could still afford. My…
