The Joys of Growing Older

About a month ago, I was given a task by an acquiantance to write a poem about growning older. In the individual having experience in the subject, I decided to take on the task with some of her examples. So, I dedicate this Poem to Pat.

 

The Joys of Growing Older

The aches

The pains

The drippings down the shirt

Oh, how I thought getting older would not hurt so much

 The memory loss

The can’t remember where I parked

The thoughts of being treated like child

Oh, now my mind is really running wild

It seems like my mouth

Gets further from my hands

Because my coordinated target

Is not where the substance is bound to land

I remember like it was yesterday

The playful games we used to play

Now if I played those games in the same way

I would have aches and pains all day

I love this joy

Coming over me

My hearings diminishing

And so is my sight to see

If I could say one word

That describes the Joy in me

I would say older

Now that describes me

 

 

 

"So Fly" by Elle Varner

 

“I can’t help bein’ depressed 
When I look down at my chest

Oh yes my chest it might as well be non-existent 

How can I ever compete

With 34 DDs

And I’m rolling my eyes

When I look down at my thighs

They might as well take everything that I eat

To my legs”

 

Elle Varner sings this catch tune about being insecure with her body type.  She even goes as far as saying that if she was minus the “cellulite with big breast and pockets full of money, she would be so fly.”  After those comments and looking at a few of Elle Varner’s pictures, you can’t help but wonder where all of this is coming from.  Well as teenagers and young adults, many of us have imagined the same thoughts, spoke the same words, and believed the same fallacies.  If only we could pick and choose our body type, hand select our facial features, and look in the mirror and see a beautiful young woman or man standing before us.

 

Elle continues the song by saying:

 

“Now listen

I got a beautiful soul

But only four people know

They’ve known me since I was ten

Beauty did not matter then

Now in my 20s

All that matters

Is sex, cars, and money

I ain’t got none of the three

So basically I’m invisible to all of the fellas”

 

I viewed the second portion of the song as Elle still being concerned with what others thought beauty should be and living by the defined standards of society.  The defined standards of society does not always lead to a continued path down the same road, sometimes people follow that road in order to define their own standards.  Elle shows exactly this in the next portion of the song, which states:

 

“So basically all I need

Is to be everything but me

Colored contacts

Liposuction

And some Implants

Somehow that don’t make much sense

I must be out of my head

If I think

That I am governed by material things”

 

In the last portion of the song, Elle defines her own definition of fly and states “don’t go believin’ the hype.  There’s no runway in the sky.  And no way you can be fly.  Not if it costs you a dime.”  I absolutely love this song.  I liked the way it transitioned to from I'm not fly to I'm going to create my own definition of fly. 

 

~Have you had your dose of "So Fly" today?