the gift of aging

Living in a society that admires youth is not easy,

especially when you find yourself looking in the mirror in the morning and thinking:

who is this middle aged person staring back?

What had happend to the young girl full of dreams and ideals ?

Oscar Wilde was right, youth is indeed wasted on the young..

I keep a photograph of myself at age 9 , i see the half smile, the golden child that had so much potential to be anything really and then i think how disappointed i am to find myself as the end product of the process called aging.

I am disappointed in the person i have become because i have made too many compromises and then too few..

 I have compromised myself as a person and chose to stay in a marriage where i was not growing as a person at all

On the other hand i have not compromised enough in my marriage in dealing with the man i had married, i had not given up enough of my anger, i chose to fight rather than flee.

When i was younger i was ruled by my anger and it led me to places i did not like, lonely places where i like a lion would be left to roar to the moon my deep fraustration with what life has handed me, a bunch of lemons .

Now that i am older and supposibly wiser i can sit alone in a coffee shop and enjoy my own company, 

i can see the anger and fraustration that i feel and stand back and reflect upon it.

I can cry if i want to , it's alright.

I can sit all alone on a bench and look out to the lake , 

I can take a walk at night and get acquainted with the night,

I can reflect upon memories of love that is gone, feel the pain and stay with it a bit, 

and then let go of the pain slowly like a boat you push to sea

I can let go of things slowly and gradually and not without a struggle but i can do it.

I can learn to accept the things i can not change and the pain of having to let go.

I can stay with how i feel and not seek an escape

I can mourn 

The only question is can i move on?

Aging allows me to grow patient with myself , and perhaps one day with others

I can sit down take a load off and reflect upon the past, slowly releasing it bits by bits, though i am not completely free of the past, i try to let go of  the pain 

knowing that sometimes its like going to the dentist , you have to go through some pain in order to end up with less pain at the end .

Aging is a gift because it brings me the sort of peace of mind i could never have experienced before

I am still my most critical judge , but i can live with myself without seeking that escape in others.