We know how Bella has some serious issues about aging because each سال she ages, she becomes one سال “older” than Edward. Her fear of aging is borderline neurotic, but it all seems to stem from not wanting to appear older than Edward. I’d always had a hard time understanding this – after all, Edward is well over 100 years old – he just doesn’t look it. And I always thought “So what if Bella becomes a few years ‘older’ than Edward in appearance? No one’s going to be able to tell!” But I suppose it’s a big deal to Bella. To this day, I don’t understand that fear....

So anyway, I compared two passages that caught my attention when I was thinking about Bella and her fear of aging. One is from Bella’s dream (or nightmare) about growing old with Edward, if she remained human. The other passage is of her thoughts of what she’s giving up سے طرف کی deciding not to be – and grow old – with Jacob.

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Edward - still smiling so beautifully that my دل felt like it was going to swell up and burst through my chest - put his arm around my shoulder and turned to face my grandmother.

Gran's expression surprised me. Instead of looking horrified, she was staring at me sheepishly, as if waiting for a scolding. And she was standing in such a strange position - one arm held awkwardly away from her body, stretched out and then curled around the air. Like she had her arm around someone I couldn't see, someone invisible...
...
With a dizzying jolt, my dream abruptly became a nightmare.

There was no Gran.

That was me. Me in a mirror. Me - ancient, creased, and withered.
Edward stood beside me, casting no reflection, excruciatingly beautiful and forever seventeen.

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As if I were looking through the filter of Jacob's thoughts, I could see exactly what I was giving up, exactly what this new self-knowledge would not save me from losing... I could see years passing, and meaning something as they passed, changing me. I could see the enormous red-brown بھیڑیا that I loved, always standing as protector if I needed him. For the tiniest fragment of that second, I saw the bobbing heads of two, small black-haired children, running away from me into the familiar forest....

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In the first passage, we see Bella’s obvious fear of turning into a wrinkly grandmother while the love of her life, Edward, remains forever youthful. I personally thought it was romantic notion that Edward would remain with Bella even in her old age, and that, when she passes away, he’d find away to end his ‘life’. I found it to be an endearing and cute thought, but maybe I’m just twisted? *ROFL* Bella obviously didn’t like it. “Granny Bella” (in the dream) appears to be sheepish – seemingly ashamed of her old age – while standing اگلے to a young Edward.

Now in the سیکنڈ passage, Jake is obviously presumed to still be phasing and therefore does not age. In Bella’s thoughts, she already has two small children with him which means that she is at least 7 years older (maybe?) than Jacob (she’s already 2-3 years older than him to start with). Here, she is getting older while Jacob remains 16 years old (even though he “appears” to be 25). Bella saw what she was giving up. It was a life she could have been happy in, had the world been a normal place.

This was what I wondered as I compared these two passages:
Why is it that she was capable of picturing herself happy with Jacob even if she was aging, while she considered it a “nightmare” that she was aging when she was with Edward?

Each سال passing (with Jacob) and “meaning something as they passed” must indicate that there is some kind of happiness there. She also expressed “losing” that future, indicating that there is some form of regret – though not enough – about the future she is giving up سے طرف کی not choosing Jacob. So if Bella can picture herself happy in either scenario (although I’m sure her happiness with Jacob would seem like a tiny drop compared to what she thinks is going to be her happiness with Edward), then why the difference in perception of aging?

To me, this seemed to be yet another example of the unconditional kind of relationship that Jacob and Bella has – regardless of it being friendship یا something مزید than that. Why does Bella put this “condition” that she must not age if she were to be with Edward??