Growing older.
A natural process so many of us resist with every fiber of our being. With age, of course, comes the unwelcome wrinkles we’d do just about anything to smooth away, the unwanted gray hair, the sluggish metabolism we’ve heard so much about and yes, the telltale aches and pains of a physical body that’s gone all in on life.
And yet.
As our bodies age, so too, to our souls. With every passing year, we grow deeper into the truth of who we really are. We become more and more aware of who we’ve been all along. We begin to willingly shed the brilliant masks with which we’ve grown so accustomed to disguising our deepest, truest selves.
Youth may be beautiful, but there’s a reason it doesn’t last: It isn’t true.
Sure, things may have seemed simpler yesterday. More carefree. Perfect by today’s unrealistic standards and harsh florescent lighting–but they weren’t, of course. Looking back now, we can see that the aspect ratio was all wrong. The perspective was off. Parts of ourselves were still out of focus somehow. With age and experience comes the knowledge that our past lives were built on well-meaning falsehoods. Lies, we inadvertently told each other (and ourselves) for the simple reason that we did not yet know who we were.
It’s impossible not to lie if you don’t know what truth looks like.
So today friends, let us embrace the notion of getting older for the opportunity it offers us to also grow deeper. To finally know ourselves. To wither into our truth.
Let us find comfort, not insecurity, in our own skin. Let us honor, not judge, the bodies that have brought us this far. Those deeply mysterious machines, formed of hearts and nerves and bones, that continue to carry us forward, albeit ever so imperfectly.
They are only the vehicles, after all.
It’s up to us to steer them wherever our truth demands we go.