I Refuse To Mourn My Youth
I refuse to mourn my youth.
I refuse to lament the passing of time.
I refuse to weep because I am growing older or because I have wrinkles. I accept every line on my face.
I will not cry over a grey hair. Or ten. Or 200.
I won't Botox my face until my forehead ceases to move. I will refuse to use "filler." I am full enough without the help of bacteria.
I don't want to be younger. I'm good, thanks. I have spent many years and tears earning who I am.
Deadlifting, 2015.
I earned those marks with years of laughter.
I smiled and chuckled until my stomach ached and those crows stamped their mirth at the edges of my blue-green eyes. These are marks of many marvelous dances well deserved. I will not deny them. And I say to you that you should trust no one my age without these feet of crows, for those people may not have smiled with their full heart and soul.
I say my age loudly and with pride now: I am 50. (Or Lisbeth 5.0—the game that improves with each new version.)
I don't whisper my age or downplay it or try to hide it. I have lived 50 years on this Earth, and I am finally making peace with the concept of having a bit of wisdom despite always feeling like I'm 7 years old.
In the liquor store, I am surprised when I am allowed to buy alcohol. It seldom occurs to me that I am older than the clerk selling the whiskey to me.
In the gym, I don't tell my age to the iron and the steel, because neither cares. You lift the bar or you don't, age be damned.
In my home, my children see me as the oldest child they have ever met, able to drive a car but still needing guidance from them. I think I amuse and terrify them. They know my father lived to be 81 and that my mother is getting closer to 90. They fear I will be over 100 some day and torment them into their 70s. I hope I am that lucky.
But this age thing? It's nothing but a thing.
Believe not the lies of this society when they tell you to fear aging or that the years will be weary. The years just are—their fullness or emptiness depends on you, as always.
And, mostly, the years give to you more than they take away.
In this American culture, we celebrate youth and ignore the elderly, as if by refusing to acknowledge the aged then we will not become them. This is short-sighted. We will always become them, if we are so very, very fortunate.
So, no, I will not mourn the passing of my youth, and I will refuse to see anything but the most incredible indigo skies ahead.
Each decade is better than the last,
each year is better than the last,
and each day is better than the one before.
Me, 6 years old.
I am here. And I am always marching onward.