March 9, 2024

“Each birthday asks me to fall into the arms of the unknown.To be held all over again. To honor the memory of who I’ve been and become new.” Anne Lamott

Aging is remarkable isn’t it? I had a dream the night before my birthday that I took a micro tab of LSD with my partner and our other loves. We had a glorious trip and each of us looked like our 19 year old selves. But the effect never went away and I permanently morphed into my twenty year old self. But just the facade, the meat suit as it were. This costume was swathed around my 63 year old psyche that is a bit battered and bruised in places yet better for those lessons. The wisdom I didn’t have when I was lithe and pretty was there now under my unlined face and brighter blue eyes. I awakened amused and not the least bit sad I didn’t look like I do in this picture. The young woman in the picture was awash in self-doubt and fear of who she was.

Indeed some of the bits about an aging body and mind are annoying and sad. Health vigilance with scares, feeling in tune with our own mortality as we watch peers succumb to diseases associated with “old people”. Sad to the point of plunging many of us—me—into a state of grief for what we’ve lost…elastic skin and joints, luxurious thick hair, unblemished skin. I struggle with this and at time wish I did have the super power to transform into that 19 year old with all that extra wisdom. But I don’t have that power and every March I come to terms with this, it’s necessary to “fall into the arms of the unknown” and if I reject my thinning hair and saggy skin I would be rejecting who I am evolving into. And that feels too wholly unwanted.