One of my biggest current subject and worry is about age/getting older. Well here's another.
When I was about 16 years old, I used to said that I wasn't concerned about getting older and in addition I would accept it and age gracefully. I was so naive.
I think a reason for this belief was because I sincerely didn't believe that I would live past the age of 18 - don't know why. I guess I couldn't see myself past that age.
Well now I'm almost starting to bump shoulders with 30, almost! So not only have I proven to my rather pessimistic teenage self that I could I live past the age of 18, but I was also wrong about gracefully accepting age.
Honestly I never had much concern for it until a couple of months ago when I noticed...{breath in, breath out} a wrinkle. Yes, right there standing in the bathroom, looking in the mirror, there on my forehead a few faint lines of wrinkles. I screamed and cried a little inside.
There I was looking at myself in disbelief. What? Why? How? When? I immediately reasoned with myself that this was a temporary side effect on some skin medication I had taken...a month or so ago. No, I would not and could not take responsibility for what I was seeing. I wanted to ball up in bed, crawl under the covers and eat ice cream. I was thinking what makeup is going to help cover this - it's not a pimple and wishing by some miracle I had Botox in my medicine cabinet.
I had already gotten used to the few strands of gray hair that would show up in my bushel of long black hair. I could always hide, pluck, or dye them.
This I could not hide, pluck nor dye.
Then I started questioning my family. Which genetic code had caused me...me to get wrinkles? Did all the women in my family start getting wrinkles around this age and I simply never noticed? Or was it there the whole time, written on their faces and I just dismissed them?
Could I be the only one amongst my friends who was getting old? No. Well how were they hiding "them" so well?
Maybe I am the only one?
I called P to the bathroom and sadly asked him if I was hallucinating...are they there really there? The wrinkles?
P's response, "dang!" He teases me yet still calls me an old lady. I want to cry until I look up at his face and I realize that there on his face, around his eyes, are some small ever so faint lines. I wondered how is it that I had never noticed it before. To me P was the same person (in the physical sense) as he was when we first met 3 years ago. When I looked at his face, I saw the most handsome man in this universe. I saw his smile and beautiful eyes and the love that I have for him. I didn't notice because I didn't care about that. Wrinkles or no wrinkles he was still P.
I was still me.
Age does creep up behind you, taps you on your shoulder and politely asks if you remember them. Birthdays are always fun, exciting and celebrated and well age is a whole other story. We hide from it, try to zap it back to younger days, lie about it and even try to ignore it. But it's there and much like a pesky mosquito, it will not go away.
I'm getting old...no older. I getting older, there's no hiding that. But getting older shouldn't be a curse. Now a days it's a blessing and a gift to grow old. Even with a few wrinkles I still believe I will age gracefully and hell imma have fun doing it.
Yes, it I will have to get use to this logic, but life is too short and the last thing I want to do is waste time agonizing over some lines. Even though I did buy some wrinkle and night cream for those very same lines.
