a birthday

I celebrated a birthday recently. It wasn't a particular milestone year and, to be honest, I was feeling rather indifferent about the whole thing. I was happy to keep celebrations low-key and my favourite part of the day was hearing from so many friends and family.

This is the first birthday where it has occurred to me that I look older than I feel. Time has a sneaky way of doing that, doesn't it? As I type these words I see wrinkles on the back of my hands. My face has lines on my forehead and around my mouth. The skin on my neck is different.

I suppose I could do something about the lines and wrinkles. It seems to be pretty common for women my age to get a little boost here and there. I could even attend a botox party! I’m not so sure though I am comfortable with that though. My skin is often volatile and better left alone.

I’m not sure when things changed. I've always had a youthful face. But now, as I turn forty-eight, all of a sudden there is a shift. I look older. At first glance, I'm the same as I’ve always been. But then I look back at a photo from ten years ago and can see the progression. The way my eyes look. How I hold my mouth. The creeping grey in my eyebrows.

It's subtle but it's there.

I don't feel older (well, most days!). But I am having a hard time reconciling how I feel on the inside with how I look in the mirror. They don't match. Do they have to? Is it like wearing a ski jacket over an evening gown? Casual on the outside and glam on the inside? Perhaps.

Or, is it really that you are only as old as you feel and we can never really judge someone by how they look?

Not too long ago I dreaded getting older. Life was passing quicker than I could keep up. I worried I would run out of time to do all the things I wanted. I felt resigned to decisions I had made when I was younger. I felt stuck. Would life always be a bunch of steps forward, backward and sideways in directions I wasn't even sure I wanted to go?

Anyone else ever felt this way? Surely I am not alone.

In recent years, my birthday has been a moment to pause and take stock of where I am at. It has been a gift of perspective. I've slowed down. I've stopped chasing the shoulds in life. I've given myself permission to chart my own course.

Now, knocking on the door of fifty, I am curious to see where life takes me next.

As I look in the mirror at my forty-eight-year-old face I see laugh lines and wise eyes. I see a life lived and stories shared. I see a woman stepping comfortably into her own skin. I see someone who is kinder to herself. I see a reminder that you are only as old as you feel.

I see possibility in front of me.

As I reflect on this birthday, it feels like life is just beginning. To me, that is the ultimate gift.

Tell me, on your birthday, how do you feel about the passage of time on?

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