Growing on

When I was a child, I thought that if you were not married by age twelve, you would never be, and marriage in my family (of two girl children) was the goal of growing older. Then when I reached sixteen and had my first true love, I “knew” that by twenty-one, I would be with my husband with plans for six children. Now when I think about age, it is still more about what is to come than what I have left behind. Yet it is not so much about the “other” person or persons who may or not be there.

If I had to choose a fixed age, one to stay at, be forever, it probably would be 45, not because 45 was such a great age for me, but because that is what I feel myself to be now and it feels good. For many years I felt as if I was 35, arrested emotional development. Or really, the beginning of my adult life. The age at which I left my marriage, became a single mother of two. (The other four will have to wait for another lifetime.) The body moved on year by year. Now I “am” 45; I’ve matured.

By some people’s tape measure, I am already on the old side of life. They are talking about mandatory retirement where I teach. I am, I think, in a field where age is a positive factor. I am constantly learning more about my craft and I haven’t slowed down yet and probably will not for quite a while. In body and mind, still moving. Learning to be where I am.

Quite a few years ago I was taking a walk with a couple of other participants at an intense ten-day meditation event. One man, a doctor, said he was envious of my painting and wanted to be an artist in his next life. I said I was training to be a dancer in my next life. The other man, a scientist and photographer, said he was training to be okay in this life...............

Posted by leya at December 26, 2003 01:02 PM