Looking Back

July 14, 2012

Physically, I am aging. I say “aging” as opposed to “older,” because I think of aging as a state of decline (although, I guess that wouldn’t apply to cheese or wine). The arthritis in my hips and knees, my deteriorating vertebral discs, wrinkles around my mouth and eyes, the gray hair that imposes itself just days after I’ve soaked it in Clairol Natural Instincts 20B (medium brown). And my brain, struggling to hold onto names and the smallest facts. Sometimes, when I’m swimming, I forget at which end of the pool I started.

This is me, aging.

But emotionally and spiritually, I am resurgent. At 54, I know who I am from the inside out. Externals do not define me. I like my own company.  I didn’t feel this way at 25 or 35 or 45. Not until I hit 50 did I realize the gift of getting older. And, I wouldn’t go back.

This is not to dismiss the longing evoked when I see my two teenagers, newly independent, a little overcome and cocky with a sudden sense of their own allure.  

R. preens before a full length mirror, wearing shorts that have more hardware than fabric, and a middrift top. She shifts her weight from one jutting hip to the other and sucks in her cheeks like a runway model, tilting her head right, then left, as she applies makeup.

E., swaggers into the kitchen, pumped from the gym and freshly showered, shamelessly checking out his reflection in every shiny surface, leaving a plume of body spray in his wake.

I watch them and I'm 16 again, a nubile southern California high-school sophomore in shorts and a halter top, driving to the beach in my mother's car with all the windows down and the Eagles blasting on the radio. I am powerful. I am free. I am near-to-bursting with excitement about life’s—or just the day’s—possibilities.

Still, I wouldn’t go back.