As I view myself in the mirror I see myself growing older. For the most part I do not mind watching youth slip into the sanctuary of wisdom and a beauty that encompasses not quite 53 years.
I remember looking at my grandmother when I was a child. She was in her early 50's and I remember thinking that when I grew up I hoped I was just as beautiful as she was. I never really feared getting older because to me it meant respect, beauty, kindness, love and a multitude of other wonderful attributes that my grandmother carried in that magical person that she was.
I picked up a magazine the other day whose month issue was dedicated to "Honouring Our Elders". I guess I am getting close to being one of them and just maybe, by some, are thought to be an elder!
Getting older just kind of creeps up on you and one morning you look in the mirror and you see this face that you don't quite recognize. At first you think it is just your morning fogginess, then you take a closer look, the eyes, they still seem to have that childhood gleam about them, and that nose, well it has always been there and that smile, well it's your signature. Yet, something is different. The tone and tautness of your skin have changed, the depth of the lines around your eyes and forehead have deepened, your hair is turning colour and is coarser.
But you are the same person you have always been. Or are you? Time slips by and you get caught up in the daily activity of living and before you know it, you stop to see what time it is and a lifetime has just slipped away.
My friend and I were discussing the behaviour of an acquaintance of mine, whom, according to my friend, is not acting appropriately for his age. "He's in his 50's for crying out loud, don't you think he should stop acting like a kid?" "Why?" I thought to myself. Thing is, just because my body gets older doesn't mean that my mind does. Yes I am wiser, after 52 years I think I should be! After all I have gone through many experiences, made many mistakes, learned many lessons, and if I have not become the wiser for it than certainly I have not been paying attention. But my heart is just as young as it ever was, my curiosity at life and joy in living it has not lost it's childhood excitement.
My generation, our culture seems so lost as to the passage of our journey and even more in the acceptance of that passage. Age, growing older is a part of it. We all have so much to offer to the generations that follow behind us. Our culture shuffles us off to old folks homes long before our time has come. (I mean this in a metaphorical sense.) By pushing the value of looking younger, feeling younger, being younger as the essence of importance, our culture has devalued those who might guide us through our right of passage and who also would help us to become wiser and more peaceful in our latter years.
Around the time I was turning 50, I picked up a book called ‘Wise Women - A Celebration of Their Insights, Courage, and Beauty’ A photo journal by Joyce Tenneson..."is a celebration of the power and beauty of women in their third phase of their lives." Tenneson captures the haunting beauty, remarkable courage and indelible wisdom of women she has encountered on her own journey. The book had a deep lasting impression on me, it not only moved me but touched me to my core.
Men and women must embrace the fact that they are getting older so that they might be all they can be at that stage in their life. Otherwise what good are we to the youth who look up to us for guidance through their own journey? How then are we to be honoured if we do not show them that life itself, from start to finish, is an admirable right of passage?
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