When I'm old

The one thing in the world that terrifies me the most, excluding failing to achieve my set life goals, completing my religious requirements, or dying a slow, agonizing death, is to grow up alone. Yes, I’ve said the dreaded word. I don’t want to end up years from now, old and lonely, dreaming about what could have been, filled with regrets and unfulfilled wishes. I guess that’s why William Yeats poem ‘when you are old’ always had a pull over me. It’s a beautifully sad poem, about lost youth, lost love, and lost chances.

When you are old
by William Butler Yeats

When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

I realize that’s something trivial to worry about considering all that's going on around the world and within our Ummah but its still what I wonder about in the relative comfort and boredom of my little corner of the world. I do think alot don’t I?