Everyone has a horror about growing old. People will say that it's better than the alternative, that is being dead. People will tell you it's about growing wise and full of love for life after years of experience. But the feelies I get when I look at these photos of four sisters who posed every year for 40 years, is just plain angry.

The backstory is that four beautiful young girls posed for a photo back in 1975. The picture was taken by Nicholas Nixon, the husband of one of the sisters, Bebe. Their photo-essay was carried in the New York Times.

Between 1975 and 2014 the sisters got together every year and Nicholas took a photo.

Forty-year horror story

Now we can all see just how cruel time is. Now we can all know what we already know inside, tucked away where we don't want to think about it - and that's the unavoidabe horror story that every day our skin cells change and we mutate into old people. Even worse, old people who still feel 18-years-old inside.

Forget the stories that you heard when you were a kid that it's ok for 'granny' to die as she's tired and wants to rest. Throw those lies that growing old is graceful in the bonfire where they belong. The horrid truth is that we are all terrified of growing old. Alhough it seems to be something that only happens to other people, like car accidents and wars, it steadily happens to all of us.

It eats us up from the inside. (Roll on cyborgs).

If you thought you were having a bad day and you're 22-years-old, think again. There's time for tears and regrets in 40-years time. These images show us why we all need to grab the 'now' and be happy with what we have. Age comes to us all, and while we might want to scream and shout and throw Molotov cocktails at fate, we just have to suck it up and live with it.

You can't run and you can't hide from your fate

Here we are - 1975. Just like you, life is a fun and beautiful experience. The future is full of hope and excitement.

Ten years or so down the line of life

Life is starting to affect the people, but hey, it's not so bad.

A little bit mature - a little bit more confident. But we aren't yet too familiar with the theft of our beauty. The mirror still lies to us.

Time goes by in the next image and it's starting to go by faster

Have you noticed that time goes faster as you get older? When you were a kid, the time between Christmases lasted ten lifetimes, but now it comes around quicker every year. Some people say that's because your memory is filling up. I bet it felt like lightning to go from young and beautiful to this, for these sisters.

'Where did the time, time, time go?'

Johnny Clegg sang his famous song about Aging.

Set in Africa, he wrote, " Where did the time, time, time go?" Can you see the marks of time here?

Staying with Johnny Clegg Afro-wisdom

Now I think about it, Johnny Clegg said it all, so to quote his next line - "my old eyes can hardly see, the green fields leaving me behind."

Seasons wheeled across the sky

And to Johnny again, must go the best way to describe aging a few simple words. "I turned around and found that I was old."

But even Clegg for all his bravery in confronting age admitted, hope springs eternal in the hearts of humans.

"Perhaps the morning brings a sweet surprise," he wrote. Wouldn't we welcome that surprise, waking up rejuvenated and twenty-five again?

But that's not gonna happen. It's the Christmas season, so take maybe this is a good time to think about our spiritual lives as we take a fast look at the morph of 40-years posted to YouTube that gives us all a dose of human reality.