The passage of time is a brutal inevitability, the one thing that's truly guaranteed in life. I feel similarly, that as I have aged I've lost more than I've gained and am withering away so to speak. One of the hardest things to grapple with in life for me is that there is a time and place for everything, and when that time has passed, we can't get it back or demand a do-over.
I can relate to feeling like an old man who has seen it all, and is ready for that eternal rest.. despite only being in my mid 20s like you. Some people experience a great deal of hardships earlier in life than others, who are spared those pains until a later date. These experiences force us to 'grow up' quicker I think, though everyone will inevitably have to experience regrets, grief, loss, and so on and so forth. It is just a specific sort of hell to deal with at what is considered to be a young age.
Sylvia Plath writes about this a lot, and I think it must have been a large motivator in her despair. She wanted to experience everything, many different lives all at once, and sample everything good and unique the world had to offer, only to realize what an impossibility those grandiose dreams in the face of time constantly marching forward.
This reflects in her metaphorical passage where she describes life as a great fig tree, ripe with fruits, but over time many of those spoils may rot and wither in the face of indecisiveness. We can choose one fig, but then this decision causes us to miss out on others and ponder about what could have been. Yet, we can't change the past once it's been done and written about.
Aging has not been kind to me either. From what I've observed in my life, many people seem to be able to cope with old age if their losses are eventually accompanied by gains along the way. Take the example of familial grief. Everyone eventually has to face the death of the people who raised them. Losing a parent, for example, may be a lot easier to cope with if you have a supportive partner and children who will be by your side and comfort you. If you never managed to gain more supportive people in life, that loss and absence is going to hit like a freight train.
Maybe you can also relate to this, losing a lot to time but then not feeling as if you had gained anything positive in the process. Childhood was not great for many of us here, but youth is an era of opportunity and possibilities, a young mind and body are like pliable clay that has yet to be moulded into any shape. With age, a lot of opportunities inevitably dry up. It's a hard pill to swallow.
When I was a child being raised by my grandparents (since I had no parents of my own) we often watched this Charlotte's web movie together on the old VHS tapes. It's supposed to be a heartwarming story to teach kids lessons about the cycle of life and the inevitable death, grief, and loss that accompanies these biological processes.
To this day, in spite of it's poignancy and ability to convey such heavy topics to children, the memory of this story still hurts me though. It's a grim reminder of how the things we love will be lost to time, and yet, the world just keeps on turning all the same. The seasons will continue to change, new young will be born, and the elders will pass on, regardless of what we do. Death is life's one great equaliser.
Knowing this is "just the way life is" though doesn't make it any easier for any of us. I would do anything in my power to turn back time again and be a little girl of around 3-4, sitting in bed with my grandparents who loved me unconditionally and watching this on the old grainy CRT. My grandfather has been a box of ashes for years now and my grandma is on borrowed time due to a freak accident. Being all alone in this world and growing older is a deep, raw sort of melancholy. I will share a song from the Charlotte's web film that has touched me deeply my entire life, in the hopes that it might resonate with you as well.
"He turns the seasons around
And so she changes her gown
But they always look in their prime
They go on dancing their dance
Of everlasting romance
Mother Earth and Father Time"
