Little fears from the downhill side of life.

There are plenty of big fears in the media these days--from Trump as president and North Korea's possible nuclear weapon to climate change that floods the coasts and heats up the middle to Death Valley proportions to suddenly finding ourselves slaves in a corporatocracy with no rights promised below the management level.

There is disease, and antibiotic resistance, videos of police shooting unarmed petty criminals and a return to the need for back alley abortions.

There is war moving so many people that the refugees may double the size of the places they are fleeing to, and they are fleeing to places that did not do well in the not-really-over global recession, so people are scared--big fears.

We are scared for our future and our children's futures. We are scared for the loss of lives, animal lives, people lives, plant lives, that we have known and accepted as part of our own lives since our childhoods.

But there are also little fears.  And when you are more than half way to the median life expectancy number, you can count yourself on the downhill side of your life.
I don't consider that to be a negative thing or a reason to give up hope. 

It does give a person a very different perspective.

On the uphill, I couldn't imagine a world without me in it.  My grasp of the time before my birth was more fantasy than history.  Most of those rare moments when I tried to imagine life after my own death, it involved the world standing still, crying and weeping and gnashing of teeth. That was where the giant "THE END" showed up.  No more me?  What is the point.

But from this side of the hill,  after years of history reading and listening to people and watching survivors as they regroup after a loss of a loved one, I get that there is no "THE END" when I die, except for me.  I get that when anyone dies, other lives change but life goes on. 

I also get that the same is true of species.  Dinosaurs might not have gotten it, or maybe they did---I certainly never met one in my life so that conversation never happened.  But what about those "last of their species" currently living out their life.  I suppose they could hope there are others still out there to continue them.  It is certainly in our genes to always try to continue our line--and that if part of being a living thing, not just a human, or maybe I'm anthropomorphizing.   I know we tend to lean toward the opposite of making animals more human, which is really just our own need to make ourselves less animal-like.

But little fears pop up.  Not like they are new to my life, but they are different fears.  Fears like "will I have to deteriorate for a long time in a nursing home?" and will I remember who I am", will young strangers make fun of me" "treat me like I was always so incapable"  "do I have enough time to improve my skills with a paintbrush and can I learn to work with silver?"  "Should I keep trying to find a way to keep this home I love so much, that is just now becoming a place that feeds my soul or should I accept that I can't do everything I want and that is likely to get worse in the coming years"  "will I have enough money to live or will I end up choosing to burden my family or go homeless"

Little fears.  The kind that do not change any part of the world but my own.

The kind that I never thought of on the other side of the hill.