Getting Old
In my 20's, I bought many clothes, high heels and bags. I always wore 5-7cm high heels for work. One of the reason was that I had a complex about being short. I was not really very fashionable, but such items were a sort of status symbol for me. Dressing up was something like armour to cover up my weakness. I think it's the manifestation of ambition, women tend to buy shoes and bags when they try to improve themselves from both outside and inside.
In my 30's, I started to seek comfortable shoes, became more flexible and now I can accept low heeled shoes. And also I feel happy as being in good health that I didn't care when I was young. Ten years later or a few decades later, people occasionally become the person you've never expected. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad.
My grandmother was admitted to a hospital because of bone fracture. She fell down on a cold night, and couldn't move on a tatami-mat. She was found by her son in the early morning. It was happened when she is pushing age 97. It was the second time she broke her leg. Until then, she was very normal, but she changed after surgery. She was modest and didn't express her emotions. I haven't seen crying her even when her husband died. But now she mentions her dissatisfaction, sometimes becomes forgetful and confuses reality with dreams. When she broke her leg ten years ago, she was discharged from hospital with extraordinary resilience. But now ten years have passed, and we worried about her physical strength, and she might become more forgetful.
Everybody, rich people and beggars, the most beautiful women, must get old, but we need to accept becoming old. I want to age well. One of the famous Japanese waka poets, Ono-no-Komachi is a symbol of a beautiful woman in Japan. She composed this poetry (Japanese classics);
Hana no iro wa
utsuri ni keri na
itazura ni
waga mi yo ni furu
nagame seshi ma ni
The flowers withered,
Their colour faded away,
While meaninglessly
I spent my days in the world
And the long rains were falling. (Translated by Donald Keene)
In my 30's, I started to seek comfortable shoes, became more flexible and now I can accept low heeled shoes. And also I feel happy as being in good health that I didn't care when I was young. Ten years later or a few decades later, people occasionally become the person you've never expected. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad.
My grandmother was admitted to a hospital because of bone fracture. She fell down on a cold night, and couldn't move on a tatami-mat. She was found by her son in the early morning. It was happened when she is pushing age 97. It was the second time she broke her leg. Until then, she was very normal, but she changed after surgery. She was modest and didn't express her emotions. I haven't seen crying her even when her husband died. But now she mentions her dissatisfaction, sometimes becomes forgetful and confuses reality with dreams. When she broke her leg ten years ago, she was discharged from hospital with extraordinary resilience. But now ten years have passed, and we worried about her physical strength, and she might become more forgetful.
Everybody, rich people and beggars, the most beautiful women, must get old, but we need to accept becoming old. I want to age well. One of the famous Japanese waka poets, Ono-no-Komachi is a symbol of a beautiful woman in Japan. She composed this poetry (Japanese classics);
Hana no iro wa
utsuri ni keri na
itazura ni
waga mi yo ni furu
nagame seshi ma ni
The flowers withered,
Their colour faded away,
While meaninglessly
I spent my days in the world
And the long rains were falling. (Translated by Donald Keene)
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