Growing older is surreal. I’m the same me I’ve always been but with more wrinkles and scars and memories.
I look at my hands and they look the same they always have. But the skin is more worn. The joints achier. They’ve done so much work in nearly 40 years. I don’t feel different but I am.
And it’s especially surreal to feel this way while holding my sleeping son. To watch him grow and develop each day. He’s so new and young still. And I’m weathered and experienced.
I remember being young. Time did not seem to exist. I remember playing in the sun. Squinting. The only thought the present moment.
I squint into the sun now and I think back to those days. I’m present but also in the past. There are two of me that exist at the same time. One feels the nostalgia the other feels the glory of youth.
I can’t help but feel the time that has passed already. My lifetime. My life. What I’ve seen and done. Who I’ve known. It’s beautiful and bittersweet all at once. Because I know it won’t go on forever. Such is human existence.
It’s why I try and struggle to live fully. Why I can’t sit still. Why I seek to share all of me with my loved ones and the world. What drives me is knowing that nothing is guaranteed. And just how fortunate I am.
