Forever Young: The Fear of Growing Old Without Truly Living

We don’t fear getting old — we fear waking up one day and realizing our youth slipped through our fingers while we were too afraid to live it.

“Forever young, I want to be forever young.”
We sing it, whisper it, tattoo it into our skin — not because we actually want to freeze time, but because we’re scared of what happens when it runs out. Not scared of death itself, really, but scared of dying unhappy. Of realizing we never danced barefoot at midnight, never told someone we loved them when it mattered, never let ourselves get messy, brave, and real. We’re scared we played it too safe — that we never really lived.

It’s not just about smooth skin or strong knees — it’s about the feeling. That electric thing in your chest when the sun hits just right and you feel limitless. It’s the wild laughter, the spontaneous choices, the mistakes you haven’t yet regretted. Youth feels like possibility, and God, do we cling to that. We don’t want to grow old — not really because of the number, but because we’re terrified we’ll get there and realize we never really lived.

We want to be forever young because we’re scared. Scared we’ll blink and find ourselves living a life we settled into instead of chose. Scared we’ll be lying in bed someday, not with someone we love, but with the…