This morning I am exhausted. My skin feels dehydrated. So much so that it may slide right off my bones. I am bloated. Anything that once resembled a “pack” of any kind is now gone. I slept 9 hours last night and took a 3 hour nap yesterday and yet my body yearns to curl up into a ball and sleep for 2 more days. My muscles are sore and my joints ache. When I was 24, sun, snacks and booze were once things included when I thought of a weekend filled with R&R. But today my body is telling a different story.
My weekend was filled with sun, snacks and booze. However, the 34 year old me wears SPF 30 and actually reapplies, has veggies and fruit along with her snacks and booze is now wine or top shelf vodka or whiskey with a bottle of water after each drink. If I had acted like my 24 year old self this weekend I honestly might be dead. Regardless of age, we all make the promise to ourselves to “never drink again” when we wake up with the world’s worst hangover. But after my “R&R” filled weekend, I have come to realize that this isn’t a bad hangover. This is me trying to cling to my youth.
It’s not just about keeping up with the ways of my 24 year old self when it comes to sun, snacks and booze, but I can see it in other areas of my life as well. It seems as though I have been quietly protesting getting older. Grasping at anything that may keep me young. Trying to prolong the process of aging. Convincing myself that if I don’t want to get older, I won’t. Acting like its a choice. The biggest one for me is becoming a mother. Not having children allows me to do what I want to do, just as I have always done. Denial has become my middle name.
Perhaps it is the thought that I would be in a different place in my life at 34 than I actually am. Or maybe it’s fear of being old and dying. Or maybe I just haven’t given myself permission to be grateful for getting older. People talk about aging gracefully. Embracing the fact that each day we are a little older and there isn’t anything to be done, but accept it and continue onward in life. We should all strive to age gracefully, but what if we also lived each day being truly grateful? Would getting older really be so bad? The 34 years I have been in this world have been spectacular. I am telling you right now that I wouldn’t say no to another 34. Even if that means that my life will be different than my first 34 years and that I will then be 68. I’d actually be grateful for it.
I will never again be the same person I was yesterday. Neither will you. But I think that being grateful for what once was and what is now might make each birthday a little easier to accept. The last 34 years has given me the experience to know that steak and salad for dinner is a hundred times better than hot dogs and chips. That a good bottle of wine worth the extra $20 and now I can actually afford it. That R&R can include cutting loose, but its okay to have limits. Like not drinking until you puke. That I will never again be 34 so it shouldn’t be wasted trying to act 24.
While I will always believe that there are some things that do actually keep you feeling and looking great. Like a solid skin care regiment, drinking lots of water, working out, smiling, loving, singing, dancing, enjoying a weekend with friends. These are all lessons I learned over time. And are lessons I am grateful for learning. But the only way I will continue to learn is if I live longer, inevitably getting older.
What if you were grateful for each decade, each year, each day, each moment? Grateful for what time has taught you and who you have become? What if these lessons were used to make each day a little better than the one before it? This, my friends, is what I think aging gratefully would be like. And thanks to my “R&R” filled weekend, this is a lesson I have begun to learn. Tomorrow I will be older, hopefully wiser and definitely more grateful than the day before it.
My 34 year old self at Bear Lake 2016.
A Pinch of Opinion 