By many accounts, Paul McCartney wrote a song when he was fifteen or sixteen that has stood the test of time. The starting and end of the song has a key line asking the lover the question that everyone wants to have answered at some point. “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?”
In my youth I enjoyed the fun of the questions and observations of what comes with aging. As years then decades past, I have come to appreciate how often I come back to the same question. I ask others as well as myself to answer the question. I asked the question as if I have never asked it before. Driven by fears, uncertainties, and doubts, I carry the emotions within me like friends who refuse to leave. I long to hear the answer, imagining, hoping that I will be reassured.
I am not the first one to ask the question. I hear the question in many different forms from young and old, successful and growing, in relationships and alone. One writer left us with his plea; “Don’t turn me out to pasture when I’m old or put me on the shelf when I can’t pull my weight.” (Psalm 71.9)
As I wake to the quietness of another tropical morning, I find myself soothed by the natural sounds of the dawn mixed with a city that is waking up. Nothing is overwhelming. There is little outside to distract. Everything seems geared to opportunities to live, act, and take a step towards whatever goals we have for the day. Things should come together, yet the question remains. Will I be needed will I be cared for when I am old
I have come to appreciate that my fears do not determine what others do or even what is possible in the moment at hand. As I release my fears, I find myself in the present with the question that always needs to be answered. What will I do now, just now? This is the moment for you, for me.
