“No one’s life ever goes as they planned. That truth alone should bring a sense of relief to everyone.”
Andrena Sawyer
Getting older
When I was young, I felt time slipping away. Despite being twenty something with life still ahead, I felt time running out with precious, painful urgency. It haunted me. Each year, I got older and felt there was little to show for it.
I avoided most of youth’s folly, thinking myself smart, thinking I was learning from other people’s mistakes. Instead, I missed out on so much. I did not pass go or collect $200. I went many times around the board before it dawned on me.
Passing time didn’t haunt me, it was how I was spending it. I was living too carefully, too by-the-book. I did lots of things, sure, but I was barely living at all.
How anyone describes a life well spent is a deeply personal thing. It looks different for everyone and it always gets messy.
Over time, we despair of our wear and tear. We don’t want to be older. We’re afraid to feel old.
Our culture venerates youth. Women especially, feel stigma attached to our years. We desperately need to build new ideals for ourselves that flex and shift through age. It almost doesn’t matter if we’re smart, successful, talented, purposeful, creative, loving individuals; it doesn’t feel enough unless we’re also beautiful. Our sense of worth is anchored in sexiness. So what happens when beauty and flirtation no longer feel like they apply?
I want to face age as an accumulation of marvelous life, instead of a dwindling. It’s time to build a new ideal.
We don’t always get what we want, but we can choose to keep pursuing it. If we keep putting ourselves on the path of our desires, what happens along the way can be as, if not more, rich and fulfilling.
Age only has the power to haunt us if we keep cautiously waiting for something magic to happen while time slips away in longings and if-onlys.
Instead of fighting with age, maybe the age we wear tells a story of who we are, what we’ve been through and how we approach life. It’s the tattoo of nature, the filling up of a soul.
Years are treasures, they’re troves of exquisite memories, achievements and insights. The age we wear is not our misfortune, it’s an artwork of the life we’ve lived and the hope we have for things yet to come.
Muchness 
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