Getting Older
There's been some here-and-there focus in younger folks in the community; the ever-present majority of teens that naturally dominate social media spaces, the rise of quadrobics and masks in the last couple years, various complaints on "puppyposting" or other short-form tag cram. But I don't think I see enough discussion on the act of getting older in the community, of changing in ways outside of your control and having to reinvent your relationship between your human and animal aspects.
I can't run--or even walk--the way I used to. The boundless energy that came so easy to me ten years ago is nowhere to be found. My phantoms are a grounding constant that balances out a human body ever in pain. It's hard to sit. It's hard to stand. It's hard to be. It's the blessing of a longer life and slower death than my animal existence would have ever afforded me, but the agony of recognizing the train coming your way regardless of how quickly it moves.
In some ways it was easier to handle being an animal trapped in a human body when I was younger. While before I developed strategies to handle the overwhelming instincts, now my thoughts are all left too loud in a body more unfit to contain them than ever before. The outlets I had weren't eternal and wouldn't last forever, even if it was something I'd never really thought about at the time. I feel like I clawed my way out of a deep hole and felt the sun on my fur, only to get pushed right back in. And now I'm stuck back at the bottom. Looking back at where I was.
It's not an impossible sisyphean task to adjust to, even if it feels like it right now. But I think it was an inevitability that I'd just never heard people discuss when I was a younger alterhuman, especially given the older community's focus on permanence of kintypes and experiences, and the greymuzzles who always packed up and left after so many years. Change is inescapable. Even in a wholly static identity, your relationship with it must be flexible. You need to be gentle, forgiving, and understanding with yourself. The things you build around your identity may not be permanent fixtures; the ways you survive in this human world may not always be accessible to you. The parks you run in may be paved over. The legs you bound with may give out. The stories and spaces you cling to may disappear. You won't die when it happens, but it will happen regardless.
The flow of time and the way it alters us and the world around us is just a fact of life. It gives us new challenges to overcome and problems to solve. There's beauty in growing older and getting to even have the experience of needing to re-write your basics from the ground-up, all over again: new things to explore and consider, new angles to circle, new pumpkins full of meat to chew on. There's always hope and joy on the horizon so long as we're not letting ourselves get locked into the past and we keep reaching out to others. Embrace the here and now, but don't expect it to last forever. The ephemerality is what makes it fun.
Be nice to yourselves and enjoy the ride, wherever it takes you.
