I’ve been having a hard time looking into the mirror lately. Not because I think I’m ugly, or fat, or old, or gross, but more because the face that I see looking back at me physically is not vibing with the person I feel like I am on the inside. I feel young at heart. I’m not unhappy with what I see – just confused.
Confused because at 54, I’m feeling lighter, happier, healthier and more content, joyful and hopeful than I did when I was 10 or 26 or 45. So what you see is not always what you get… what you see on the outside is not the me on the inside. Inside lives a timeless being.
I feel young and alive and excited about life.
Young at heart and at least young in the way that I imagine a young person should feel. Through the desire to become authentic, I am continually shedding the layers of destructive emotional gunk that I’ve acquired through this human experience and feel like I’m getting closer and closer to my real self, my child self, my happy self.
It’s also a real dichotomy to me: to look into the mirror, see the body and face of a 54 year old woman, but feel so much younger! My spirit is getting younger and stronger as my body gets older, and wonder where did my perky breasts go? Who thought this human process through anyway?? Now that I am so much more aware and conscious of who I REALLY am, and what I REALLY want to do, and who I REALLY want to be, my body is reflecting the reality that MOST of my life has been lived and that I’m not ever going back to the physical state of my earlier days. No more perky breasts for me! In my fall of life, leaves aren’t the only things falling.
We don’t really start to become aware of physical aging until our face and our body start to show signs of decline. Lines, gray hair, droopy boobies, jiggly skin under your biceps, liver spots, rings under the eyes, slouching posture, and thinner lips, all represent the fact that we are no longer on the ascent physically, but beginning our natural descent into the aging phase of life.
Most people don’t like this part of the journey, and resist it at all costs. Hair color, Botox, breast surgery, facelifts, etc. are just people’s efforts to stop the mirror looking back at us and saying “you’re decomposing sucker and there ain’t nothing you can do about it!”
However, although my body is in the aging and waning years, and not the young, firm, tight specimen of my younger days, I can finally look at my physical self with so much more love and appreciation and gratitude than I did back then when my butt was tight, my lips were fuller and my hair had a nice, deep, brown color. So with great enthusiasm and excitement I say, aging and maturing, I’ve earned you, and welcome the wisdom you represent. Now I can focus all the more on what really matters: my contribution to the world from the inside out. And… in my heart and soul I remain forever young.
