As I watch another digit get added to my chronology this week I am even a bit more introspective than I usually am. I am fascinated by the number of numbing things we humans say in response to growing older. When I intimated to a friend that I was feeling a bit of discomfort around the rapidly increasing passing of time, they were quick to rattle off a few truisms to I guess assuage my minimal emotional reaction. “You know age really is a state of mind. You are only as old as you feel. You aren’t getting older as much as you are getting better.” While I am open to the relative truth contained in these tribal jewels, the fact is that state of mind or not, I am getting older. If I am only as old as I feel there are now days when I may feel much older than the fifty four years I have accumulated. Getting better? Yes, in terms of conscious evolution I know that I am. And there is no doubt that I am also getting older.
Now please be clear my wonderful reader that I am not saying that aging is a bad thing to be somehow denied or rectified. And neither am I saying that any internal response to the aging process is an emotional enemy to be suppressed. The fact is that this wondrous body that has carried me valiantly through this incarnation is not able to do many of the things it once was capable of. I am not clocking the number of miles while speed walking that I once did, and to even call it speed walking at this point in life is a bit of an exaggeration. I now need my progressive lenses to compose this writing while leaning into my lumbar supporting office chair. I have come to willingly wear sensible shoes, a horror I would have once railed against. And though I know that my biological age is not equal to my chronological age, I am wrestling with some of the ravages that time has seemingly tolled upon my physical body. I am grappling a bit with what is still possible for me in this lifetime. I am looking now into the legacy that I feel called to leave for my younger family members and for the next generation at large. I long to use the time I have left to expand past the limitations that have loomed large on the horizon of my consciousness. I so want to fulfill the destiny that stirs within my heart and beckons me into my ever-expanding Soul.
This morning a spontaneous prayer arose within my being;” Renew in me my sense of Infinite Possibility. Enlarge in me my sense of personal probability.” There is a strong tribal agreement that states that when we reach a certain age our sense of possibility begins to diminishment. This is a gravitational force to be reckoned with by those who choose to challenge its supposed wisdom. Though I am far from decrepit I can feel the pull of inertia that states that perhaps my best days are now behind me. That what may have been possible at thirty is far from probable at fifty four. I could easily wave away these subtle feelings with the shout of an affirmation, yet I am choosing to follow to where the nuances may be leading me. While I do not choose to be defined by age I will not ignore it either. The poignancy of legacy is a profound gift to my awareness, and the sense that the likelihood of less years coming than have already passed keeps me awake to how I am utilizing my moments. I intend that these fleeting feelings will open me further to the ageless life that is still seeking to live through me. And I will to stay ever-open to possibility, regardless of the passage of time. Creation is possibility and possibility is creation. I intend to continue to create until my final work of art is my final exhalation. I want to continue to expand my sense of possibility until I simply must release this body in order to expand any further. And expansion is not of age but of perception.
And so I am getting better as I am indeed growing older. Age is a state of mind that says possibility is still vibrantly alive in me. I am as old as I feel and thankfully age has taught me the incredible gift of allowing myself TO feel. I am open to celebrate this entire human adventure- slower paced, be-speckled eye, and lumbar supported fifty four year old me.
