I feel jealousy for that body’s energy and relief for this mind’s peace. This is the strange mathematics of midlife trade-offs: losing vigor while gaining clarity. I wouldn’t be twenty-five again; the price of those capabilities was too high.
Now, thirteen years later, this small white line makes me smile. This is the beauty of aging—each mark carries biography, each line holds story; skin bears witness to a life lived fully.
With strangers, I’m patient and gentle. With family, I’m irritated by their slowness and frustrated by their forgetfulness. Strangers get my highlight reel; family gets the raw footage—why we become impatient with aging parents.
I miss the version of myself who could write poetry without self-consciousness. The twenty-two-year-old who wrote fearless poetry is as dead as if he’d literally died. This is grieving your past self—mourning former selves so the current one can still choose how to live.
With strangers, I’m patient and gentle. With family, I’m irritated by their slowness and frustrated by their forgetfulness. Strangers get my highlight reel; family gets the raw footage—why we become impatient with aging parents.
Arash came to me crying about a nightmare, and I said what eleven-year-old me needed to hear. This is the strange grace of reparenting yourself: healing the past by becoming the adult you needed, offering safety that rewrites the script for both child and parent.
Watching aging heroes miss easy catches and forget familiar lines, we feel time’s democracy. Their greatness was human all along—real, but still mortal. The lesson aging heroes offer now is dignity in decline, and how to keep our humanity intact as powers fade.
Watching aging heroes miss easy catches and forget familiar lines, we feel time’s democracy. Their greatness was human all along—real, but still mortal. The lesson aging heroes offer now is dignity in decline, and how to keep our humanity intact as powers fade.
The Cruel Timing of Wisdom: Understanding Too Late. The tragedy is timing—we acquire understanding precisely when our time to use it grows shorter. The real curse would be aging without gaining wisdom, reaching forty or fifty or seventy still chasing the same illusions.
The Loneliness of Aging: Living in a Body That Betrays. This is the loneliness of physical change—watching your body make decisions without consulting you, becoming foreign territory you’re forced to inhabit. I am not my back pain or my vision loss or my metabolism. These are conditions I’m experiencing, not conditions I am.
Curated insights, thoughtfully delivered. No clutter.
