old

 

a few weeks ago i was referred to as "old" for the first time.  it was offered up in a not unkind way by someone in their twenties.  not at all offended, i, nonetheless, paused to let it sink in.

i feel lucky to be aging because it means i'm still here.

and then i chanced to open to "old" in this lovely book by david whyte that i keep on my nightstand.

"ageing," he writes, "is our apprenticeship to both increasing presence and increasing disappearance, at one and the same time.  in the daily and surprising newness of recognizing we are old, one thing we know for certain:  that stranger in the mirror is not a true outer representation of the new, inner, fresh life, still being born, far inside us.  no matter our chronological age, there can burn the rose fire of an inner compass pointing to a new true-north."

i think i might be starting to grasp what my great grandma nettie said when we sang happy birthday to her 4 years before she passed away.  she sat up and said, "but i'm not 99!" 

at the time i thought she was just forgetful.  now i see that she may have been surprised herself, still perhaps feeling all the ages she ever was:  12 and 37 and 83, all making up who she was and is simultaneously from the inside-out.

since we tend to look from the outside-in, it's easy to forget that, while we are visibly aging without, inwardly we are being renewed day by day.