Many thanks to Ginger Nuts of Horror’s Jim Mcleod, who recently ran a feature called “Confronting the Unseen Horror of Aging” about my lifelong fascination with (and blinding fear of) the aging process. The themes of aging and death take center stage in my new novel FIND YOUR WAY BACK TO ME, as a catastrophic event forces the story’s main characters, Jodi and Martin, to face their mortality. Writing the book was an unsettling experience, but also a cathartic one.

Mcleod’s GNOH story opens with an encounter from my sixteenth year of life, during one of my first days at a new job, when I came face to face with a very old woman I described as “a shell of what a human being was supposed to look like.” Seeing her like that, with no trace of vibrancy, left a deep and lasting impression. I vowed to never let myself be reduced to such a state, which is something you might expect from a stupid kid who doesn’t yet realize how the human body actually works.

I passed a milestone birthday not long ago, which means I’m getting to the point in my life where more and more members of the generation preceding mine are shuffling off Shakespeare’s mortal coil. Even some of my classmates from grade school and high school have died as a result of either disease or some tragic accident. As a result, thoughts surrounding aging, infirmity, and, ultimately, death take up more space in my mind than ever before.

Books of essays and poetry from the likes of Luray Gross, Donald Hall, Jim Harrison, and W. S. Merwin have informed my understanding of how humans contend with the passing of time. Yes, it’s unavoidable, and yes, our faculties will diminish, but even in periods of decline we will have moments of joy and wonder and discovery. Harrison’s poem “Zona,” from his final book of poetry, Dead Man’s Float, said it better than I ever could.

I often feel as though my life has just gotten started, yet I also realize my good fortune at having made it as far as I have, in part because I grew up thinking I would not live to see thirty. I’ll borrow a quote often attributed to Mark Twain: “Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.”

Images by Carlos Eduardo Du and Tom from Pixabay