Jane Fonda 'Wonderfully, Terribly Aware' of How Little Time She Has Left

Feb. 25, 2014 -- At 76, Jane Fonda is beginning to become more aware of the aging process.

In a new essay on her website, entitled "Crying," the actress reflected on aging and how it's affected her.

"I find my emotions are way more accessible than they were when I was younger and I've come to feel it has to do with age. I have become so wonderfully, terribly aware of time, of how little of it I have left; how much of it is behind me, and everything becomes so precious," Fonda wrote. "With age, I am able to appreciate the beauty in small things more than when I was younger perhaps because I pay attention more. I feel myself becoming part of everything, as if I bleed into other people's joy and pain."

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Among the things that have reduced the actress to tears? Her friend Kerry Washington's pregnant belly, lines in Eve Ensler's new play "OPC," and photos of elephants.

"I've listed sad things but what startles me even more is how I get emotional about nice things," she wrote. "Maybe because I'm older my heart is wider open, like a net that wants to catch all the things that matter."

Fonda also explained that these emotional responses have forced her to think about her connection to the earth in a literal sense. In that way, she has begun to plan for the inevitable.

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"There's the reality that in a few decades (if I'm lucky) I will be in the earth, fertilizing some of the very things I look at now and tear up over," she wrote. "I'm not going to be cremated, uses up too much energy and gives off too many toxins, nor do I want to be in a coffin. Just dump me in a hole and let me morph into whatever as quickly as possible."

For now, though, she' s happy to admit she's going through life with an open heart.

"I have to only wear waterproof mascara from now on," she said.