Do Not Go Gentle

Into That Good Night

Volodymyr Kish

Sometime in the past decade, it finally hit me. I was approaching that dreaded realm of what is known as the retirement years. All through my thirties, forties and early fifties I knew that my chronological clock was ticking, but I never got the sense that I was somehow getting “older”. I was leading a rich, interesting and busy life and I was never lacking for energy. Further, my body was proving to be fairly resilient and able to mitigate any of the abuses my adventurous self would inflict upon it.

The first sign that perhaps my self-perception was starting to enter the sphere of wishful thinking was when my routine annual medical checkups stopped being the routine check marks that they had always been. Some time in my mid- fifties, my doctor who has known me for almost thirty years, indicated to me that my blood pressure had finally inched over that threshold where I would have to start taking daily pharmaceuticals to prevent it from growing into something more detrimental. Several years after that, my lifetime indulgence in good Ukrainian food and a taste for fine wine led to another threshold being breached – that of my cholesterol levels. That caused the addition of another pill to the daily pill box.

Ah well, I surmised, I guess I am not invulnerable to the passage of time, but I still had no real appreciation that “old age” was just around the corner. Then I started to notice that my weight, which had remained stable for almost all of my adult life, was inching northward with each passing year. When I finally reached two hundred pounds, it scared the bejesus out of me, and I finally made myself conversant with the intricacies of dieting and good nutrition. I have managed to retreat to a more comfortable and acceptable weight level, however it has become obvious that I need to be far more disciplined about what passes through the portals to my digestive system.

Unfortunately, it did not stop there. I soon started noticing that my hair was increasingly becoming more and more of what I euphemistically call “silvery”. Even worse, my skin was starting to exhibit a predilection towards creating dark spots in random places as well as growing little growths which my doctor calls “skin tags”. “Don’t worry”, he says, “It happens to most people when they grow older. They are perfectly harmless”. Maybe physically, but they are certainly not benign to my ego and psychological state of mind.

The last straw of course was when earlier this year I finally became a grandfather. In itself, the event was indeed a truly joyful occasion. Nonetheless, it also finally hit me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could no longer enjoy the delusion that I was still somehow “middle-aged”. When I looked in the mirror, I had to honestly admit to myself that I was…well, I guess I was maybe…well, in any case I was close to being a…???

Hmmm! To tell the truth, I really don’t know what I am. However, I am not prepared to admit that I am, well, old. Perhaps I may be suffering denial, but I am inclined to follow the prescription voiced in Dylan Thomas’ famous poem that goes:

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

The hair on top may be grey, but inside my head I still dream in technicolor. I still yearn for travel and adventure. I have things to do, books to write. I have crazy ideas to explore. I still have many things to try and mistakes to make. I have passions to burn, songs to mangle and bad jokes to torment my friends with. There are still wines I haven’t drunk and exotic things I haven’t eaten. There are still many friends to be made and great times to be enjoyed.

I cannot and will not give in to the notion of being old. I will rage against the dying of the light. I will be thirty nine for a long time to come yet. Yes – I will not be “old”. However, all this ranting has made me a little tired. Maybe, I will go have a nap.