www.womanthismonth.com 79 November 2013 Of all the juxtapositions in life, the most baffling has to be our constant fight between ageing and trying to find a mythical fountain of youth. Everyone uses creams and medications or travels the globe seeking places in the hope of preventing or slowing the ravaging process or ageing. We’ve been looking in the wrong places. My best friend passed at 21. I used to look at his photos thinking how great his life was and compare it to mine. Then I realised, his life was cut short and ended there. His life never had a chance to go wrong, to have mishaps or to suffer the indignities of age, like sore backs, leg veins and thinning hair. So many people have been lucky in this manner. Okay ‘lucky’ may be a harsh word for some of you to comprehend in light of the subject matter. Would we love, adore and reflect upon Marilyn Monroe if she were still with us, wrinkled, withered and at 87 years of age? Would we hold her to the same respect and admiration? Would she have by now gone the way of so many celebrities in shame, drunken behaviour, bankruptcy, provocative tapes or lurid events? Would she merely hide her face from paparazzi? James Dean, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, Ritchie Valens, Martin Luther King, Jr, Diana, Princess of Wales, John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Amelia Earhart, Che Guevara – this is a short list of those we still idolise despite their passing decades ago. Eternal youth never did inspire me. Some days the concept of seeing out another day can seem far too long. Living forever or prolonging nature seems futile. Sometimes, the reality that we’ve been given 60 to 80 years to merely arrive, work and leave seems a little silly to me. Are we here to benefit the world? Are we merely toys of a higher being or an experiment of another? For those who do believe in eternity or the hunt for it and for those who seek to turn back the years despite no one before us being able to, consider the fact that those we adore for their youthful features and for their ability to prevail throughout the decades are often those who have actually already left us. Going early allows us to leave unblemished records. We could look smarter and wiser in youthful demise as we had no time to destroy the image of perfection and get into the strife and troubles that come with age. Remaining young and searching for perfection may not be so much about a hunt for balms, oils and expensive resorts. It might just be the ultimate con. Eternal youth may not be something to attain in life, but actually the opposite, to attain in death! What are you willing to sacrifice to be remembered forever? It’s quite a troubling thought really and not something that I wish to add to my bucket list. he says Life Everlasting by JAMES CLAIRE I don’t mean to sound morbid, but I have found the answer to the age old quest for eternal youth – it is death!
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