Luminous With Age

I am a baby boomer, a mother, a daughter, teacher and friend.

I am graced to be here today, fully alive, beginning new and exciting projects as my career changes and grows.  So too is my body changing, no longer the young woman I have only just come to really know - and accept.

Here I am, having arrived at the entrance of the wisdom years in my life journey...the years my first yogi spoke of when I was just 22.  He was 90 if a day, vibrant yet serene, and unafraid.  He seemed to know who he was and where he was going.  He certainly knew why he was here.

"LOVE your life!" he said, "and work hard to stay healthy. We will need your voice to be strong when you enter the wisdom years."

I don't remember him qualifying his statement with "and don't forget the botox."

How can I describe the beauty of this time through the eyes of a culture that fears the look of aging?

The wisdom years are rich with experience amd insights that can only be earned through the maturation of time.  Yet not everyone who reaches time necessarily embraces the wisdom that is meant to come with it.

  

I recently came across an email from a few years ago that I saved. The content is from some anonymous person as far as I know, but the words were edited, and repeated, and forwarded from friend to friend...

On Aging

" I am probably now for the first time the person I have always wanted to be.

Though often I am taken aback by the 'old person' who lives in my mirror, I don't agonize about things for too long.  I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly.


As I've aged I've become more kind to myself, and less critical.

I've become my own friend...


I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon, before they understood the great gift that comes with aging. 

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken...broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion.  A heart never broken is sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.


I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turn gray and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face.


As you get older it is easier to be more positive.  You care less about what other people think.


So, to answer your question, I like being old.  It has set me free.


I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here I will not waste my time lamenting what could have been or worring what will be..."

So what worry would you like to let go of? Must you really wait any longer?  And if so...why??

For me, the truest anti "aging" devise has been to work on getting to know myself better and love myself more...to stand behind my most unique talents, and be willing to share my gifts.  To care less about being ridiculed and more about serving.  To give and forgive.  To laugh frequently...and loud.

Oh - and yes...to do the work of staying healthy so that I can still be here sharing my voice.

Blessings to you on your own journey.

Namaste