YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL

When you and I were forever wild

The crazy days, city lights

The way you’d play me with me like a child

Will you still love me?

When I’m no longer young and beautiful

When I got nothing but my aching soul

Will you still love me when I’m no longer beautiful? 

You know that incredibly weird thing your mind does where it thinks about something and within micro seconds it has thought of about a thousand other scenarios that are sometimes really random from your initial thought but are amazingly connected to it? Like you can think about so many situations under a second and somehow they are all linked with the first thought that sent you down that reflection path. If you don’t know this feeling, I guess I have to add that to my list of thousand things I experience which somehow eludes other homo sapiens. 

So anyway going back to why I’m writing this; in case you didn’t know, the first part of this article written in italics are actually the lyrics to Lana Del Rey’s song ‘Young and Beautiful’. A soundtrack for one of the most popular movies released this year; the Great Gatsby. I was listening to the whole soundtrack album for this movie earlier today while I was doing my laundry (Jay Z did a really good job producing this album but that’s one for another day) and though I admit this song is one of the solid tunes that hold this album together aside Florence Welsh and Gotye’s piece, I normally don’t play it back thrice or more as I did today. I don’t know but something about the words and the whole song demeanor struck me quiet heavily today and it didn’t take me a while to figure out why. 

You see my grandfather was recently diagnosed of dementia and though this is a normal age-related illness and shouldn’t really be too emotional for the rest of us, when you have a grandfather whose mind and skills is one of the traits you admire the most, emotional becomes a word too weak to describe how you feel in the moment. My granddad was an architect, was part of the team that built one of the biggest high schools in Ghana and Africa; PRESEC. Was part of the team that built the many structures that we call our government ministries today. When you are exceptionally close to a genius like this and he begins to forget sometimes that he is home, can’t remember your name, forgets the nickname he used to shout anytime he saw you return from boarding school, it is a bit difficult, putting it mildly. But you know what; once again I have to remind myself that this is not the point of me writing this.

Nah, my motive is actually more morbid and depressing. 

I did a few readings about dementia and whether it was hereditary or not. Let me not get into medical technicalities and complication but turns out some types are generic and what’s worse, they do NOT skip generations. Now this is where my whole brain connecting situations under a micro second scenario theory comes into play. 

I am a very adventurous person; I like to see places I’ve never been before, like to meet people who are different in every way from me. Where people get their kick from sitting with buddies to catch a weekend football game or head out with some friends to the clubs, I find little joy in those. I am outdoorsy, I walk for hours checking out things most people don’t give second thoughts to. Growing up, I was a bit vain and narcissistic, in that I was a handsome young lad and everyone said so. The mirror was one of my close friends and I spent hours admiring how I looked but you see I as I grew and came across other equally beautiful  people whose attitudes and treatment of other people were anything but beautiful, I snapped out of it. I gave little and little attention to how I looked and instead worked more on my interactions with people. Now I’m writing all of this down just so you know that when I grow old someday and perhaps start to lose my memory, the last thing I would be worried about is not beauty or good looks. 

My energy. My ability to wake up one morning and go to any random place I want to. My youthfulness and zeal to learn more. My inability to see beauty in things, in people. These are the things I’m worried about. People say you can be forever young; it’s all about the heart and the mind-set. Makes me sick hearing that. How about I want to help build a school in some random rural setting somewhere and I can’t even walk across the room for a potty session without my cane or a family member whose name I can’t remember? How would I react to that? Would I be unaware of my pathetic situation or would I seethe and whimper inside because the inevitable has happened? Would I sit with friends and family, talking about past things as if they were occurring or about to happen? Would they look at me sometimes and shake their heads in a sympathetic way while exchanging concerned looks? Would they wish me gone soon enough because I would be disrupting their own lives and their time to be young and beautiful?

I don’t mean to go down this depressing road and dragging you along with me but well I was listening to a Lana Del Rey song and somehow things took a gloomy, depressive turn… surprise, surprise. 

Now that I’m done pouring my guts out, I don’t see the point of my writing all of this  but I’m still going to post because in some dark, twisted way, it all makes sense to me and that’s all that matters.