Unfiltered Story #353528

I am two years old, almost three, and I am visiting my home country for the first time in my memory. Just a day or two before, I had met my great-grandmother. While I was meeting her, I noticed that she had all these weird lines on her hand like I had never seen before. I asked her what they were, and she told me that they were wrinkles, and they mean she’s getting old.

A few days later, my parents are visiting a church in town, and they’ve taken me along. Just by chance, I catch a glimpse of my hand, and I notice… lines! Oh, no! Wrinkles! That means I’m getting old! I start bawling my eyes out, and I’m inconsolable for the rest of the day. My parents have no idea what’s bothering me, and nothing they do can cheer me up. Eventually my dad gets me to calm down enough to tell him what’s wrong. I show him the wrinkles on my hand and tell him that I’m getting old like Great-Grandma. My dad explains to me that those lines aren’t wrinkles, they’re veins, that they carry blood through my body, that everybody has them, and that I won’t have to worry about getting old for a long, long time. I calm down almost right away, feeling significantly relieved.

I’m 26 years old now as I write this. I still get the occasional existential crisis, but they’ve never been quite as overwhelming as that one.