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| (1990) |
It started about a year and a half ago. First it was the white eyebrow hair, then the sudden appearance of chicken-skin-neck in every photo, and then finally it was the feeling of frailty that accompanied every easily-earned bruise or unpredictable loss of balance.
This is what aging feels like. Before even mastering adulthood there was this rapid onslaught of declining everything. For me it began at 41.
I can let go of the vanity of it, mostly. There is little time for it these days anyway. I'd already become that person who used the presence of my 4 year-old as a shield from judgments for my general lack of put-togetherness. (Though challenging are the days when I can't hide behind the stroller, and there is no obvious justification for my frenetic and unpolished veneer). But there is something about the dramatic realization, the unexpected epiphany brought on by the bathroom mirror, that the body truly is decaying. Things are failing. Strength is diminishing. Healing powers are slowing. And yes, appearance is altering.
It is easy, downright tempting, to feel as though all that is magical is slipping away like muscle tone. Holding on to memory, feeling, perspective, intent becomes key. I AM magical. I CAN do things. I am more than this weak arm. This gray eyebrow. These are some of the necessary affirmations.
The tricks of body and mind that come with growing older may be unwelcome here, but they are undeniable. As people have heard me lament this past year, I am irrepressibly closer to being 50 than I am to 30. That is quite a thing. These are the surprises of life that lack originality - the embarrassing realization that the 50-something-year-old-father of the 20-something-year-old-eye-candy sees himself in your league. And the 20-something also sees you in dad's league. Only you, in your late-adolescent-brain-stuck-in-a-40-something-year-old-body, didn't realize this monumental shift. When the fuck did that happen?
The pacts made in our youth are long gone. We've all grown up, secretly, quickly, accidentally. We aren't young, bright, or beginning. The kid who was cool and interesting and seemed smart as a teenager can now be found less than a mile from where he grew up, collecting disability and living vicariously through one of his several children. The kid you thought you'd end up with ended up with someone else. Your prom date is a GRANDPA. And the kid who taught you lessons of bravery, self-love and suffering didn't make it at all. He died before he could teach you anything about growing old.
I am not saying there is no more newness. I may still climb Kilimanjaro. That marathon I didn't train for in time for my 40th birthday, because it was in conflict with a round of IVF, may in fact become a goal for 50. New achievements will be had, challenges faced, surprises possible. I am far from done. My bones may ache a little (read a lot) more than they did before, my emotions may be intensified, my recovery time lengthened (when did it happen that an hour of dancing = a day of joint pain?) but more newness is ahead. Every day will still offer up opportunities for a life built by intention, though those opportunities may look different, older, stranger than they used to.
So there it is. This incongruence of self. Some days I honestly hope for not much more than to not embarrass myself. It will take some time to acclimate to this new, older me - years, I suspect. In the process of recalibrating, there will likely be more growing pains. Some of them real, some of them imagined. And every once in awhile, my body and mind will forget its years for a moment and I will be transported back to that girl who danced wildly to this song or that one back in 1990. When an 18 year old - with only the beginning of prematurely graying hair, a smooth neck and sure-footedness - had just begun to embark on a life that defied local custom and expectation. Ready, with the unstoppable energy and arrogance of youth to go all in. I know her. Balls to the wall.
