I realized that my aging is more physically evident lately.
It is like a beautiful weathered house on the water.
It looks different when it’s been there a lifetime vs when it’s brand new.
Even if the owners took care of it in every way, the many gatherings, celebrations, transitions and of course the ocean splashing all over it, has made it look different.
I don’t think the word older is relevant to the house on the beach or to ourselves.
A word such as transformed is closer to the meaning of who I am becoming.
I looked at my face the other day and I saw so many new layers of living on it.
My body also looked not just heavier but more at home, it was as if it was telling me I am not going back to being smaller.
My body was changing along with me.
Making sure I knew that we were a team.
Body and mind.
At first, you go to war with your body, trying to make it go back to the way it used to look, but it always wins.
It has to match our inner growth and unfortunately our inner worlds carry with them a hard life. I have never met anyone without a hard life.
Without the ocean falling on them every day.
Without trespassers taking advantage of the living room, kitchen and deck every day.
We have been explored, rejected, abandoned but also loved, and adored.
And love leaves bigger marks.
Because we will always lose love and that is the biggest wave the ocean hits the house with. Our so called aging comes from losing the loves of our lives, never getting a second chance at the same memory.
Another round of kisses and conversations under the moon.
If you are reading this in your 20s or 30s and think this doesn’t pertain to you, know you too have already lost so much. You have weathered storms, and crashing waves.
If you are reading this and you are in your 80s, 70s, 60s, 50s and you are saying in your quiet voice, oh Christina you just wait until you get here how much older you will look.
I hear you. I am in the beginning of a long aging process.
But I deeply believe that even when the biggest wave of my life hits me, one that I cannot survive, I will close my eyes so fast and leave my body even faster than the wave can find me.
On to the next life journey, somewhere else with the same friends but with different names.
With the same witness but with another body to shape over the years.
My passion for sitting on the wet deck under the rainbow, the sand drying out but sticky enough to build sand castles even for a day. For an evening.
And my gearing up for the next day waiting to be transformed into whatever was next.
Just like my eagerness for the next time I get the chance to ‘age’ and blanket my inner self with the world.
With many waves and many lives,
Christina
P.S This week’s podcast was about everything that has to do with our life and loss. With Dr. Rick Hanson. He also had this deeply healing voice. I hope you take us for a walk this weekend. Listen HERE.
