The Psychological Aches of Aging

We all know the physical aches of aging, that furtive process that seems to sneak up on you almost overnight.  But what about the psychological aches of aging?  What about coming to terms with the fact that your best years are already behind you?  That's a lot harder to deal with and to accept.  With people living a lot longer today you'd think that middle age would be easier, healthier.  We know so much more than our parents did.  We exercised our whole lives, we ate right and lived right so we should be able to make the transition a lot easier, shouldn't we?  Think again.  You feel more emotionally and physically vunerable.  You have less energy, you experience sleep disturbances for no reason at all.  Your eating and sleeping patterns also change.  You develop acid reflux for the slightest reasons so you can no longer eat to your heart's content, and no matter how strong or active you were in your youth, you become fragile.  You find yourself getting up several times a night and wake up with circles under your eyes.  You cry more easily and you begin to deal with your mortality almost on a daily basis.  Thoughts of dying and disappearing are suddenly very real and you want to leave something behind, something you will remembered by other than your next of kin and children.  The truth is you want to go on, life is a bittersweet affair but you love it, and you treasure it more and more in your later years.  But the mourning of your lost youth is very real and it goes on for a long time.  You ask yourself "how did this happen?"  How did I get here without even noticing it?  Where did those golden years go?  And believe me those were really the golden years.  The truth is that it was never easy, it was always painful because growing up is painful but you had a lot of time then, time to grow, love, learn and  make mistakes.  Now time has become your enemy and you're very aware of the brevity of life.  What to do?  How to adjust to this new reality?  I wish I knew.  I'm still struggling with it and mourning my lost youth.  Peace and acceptance will come I'm sure but it will take a long time and by then I'll have to meet new challenges.