This Is Me

Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been. – David Bowie

I will turn 64 next month, on January 9.  The process of aging has been on my mind a lot lately. 

Not because I feel old, because I don’t. In fact, I feel more free, more energetic, and more centered than when I was young. 

I have raised my children, who are making their way in the world. I have had a great career, but no longer want to climb the corporate ladder. I have work that fulfills me but doesn’t sap my energy or my sanity. I have enough money to live comfortably and to do the things I want.

I dress in comfortable clothes and wear tennis shoes most days. I do not commute to work. Most days I have time to take an afternoon walk with Zoey and Lulu. Although I would like to lose some weight, I am grateful that I can still walk across Rome with my camera or tackle the steep hills on our mountain with the pups. 

I recognize bad drama and toxic people better now and stay away from them. I am comfortable with my introversion and no longer feel guilty saying NO when I don’t want to do something. I know my boundaries and try to maintain them.  

I value my close friendships more than I did when I was younger and “busier”. I am connecting again with those who have mattered most to me – those with whom I go back over 40 years from college. We appreciate how each has changed and weathered the storm, but also see each other’s essence- the part we fell in love with when we were twenty, the part that still shines through all our wrinkles. 

I make decisions faster now, more often following my heart. I know what fills my soul and I seek it out. 

I still have a sharp tongue but am far kinder than I used to be. Age and loss have taught me that everyone has a story and is often walking around with a hole in their heart. 

I no longer try to change those I love or push my advice and problem solving on them. I still like to run the show but can now more gracefully cede the floor if someone else wants to be in charge. 

I read a piece on aging recently by one my favorite authors, Anne Lamott. She tells a story about a time she went shopping with her best friend Pammy, two weeks before she died of cancer. Pammy was in a wheelchair and a wig. Anne came out of the dressing room in a dress that was short and tighter than normal, and asked Pammy, “Does this make my hips look fat?” Pammy looked her in the eyes calmly and said, “Annie, you don’t have that kind of time.”

“You don’t have that kind of time.” 

It’s become my new mantra – what aging is teaching me. 

I don’t have time for uncomfortable clothes or shoes. 

I don’t have time to fight or argue with those I love about something inconsequential. 

I don’t have time to not move my body every day.

I don’t have time to wait to travel to places I have longed to go. 

I don’t have time to eat and drink too much and tell myself I’ll do better next week. 

I don’t have time to not answer the phone when my dear friends call. 

I don’t have time to work with people I do not like or respect.

I don’t have time to not drop everything and spend time with my boys or my brother when the opportunity presents itself. 

A photographer friend Micah MacKenzie took this headshot of me in October at Patti Digh’s Life is a Verb Camp. I won’t lie, I was hoping for something a little more glamorous, as he is a marvelous photographer. Clearly, I really needed a haircut. I didn’t dress up and had been running around the grounds of Camp Kanuga beforehand.  

But this is me – right here, right now. At 63 – almost 64.  

The person I always should have been. The person who doesn’t have that kind of time anymore to worry about it. The person who knows who she is and who she is not. 

I wish that I had learned this 20 or 30 years ago, it might have changed my life. But it doesn’t matter, as, – you guessed it – I don’t have time to spend wishing things had been different. 

Anne tells another story of a walk along a lake with her friend Neshama. Neshama decided to go for a swim, and took off all her clothes, right there. Anne asked her, “Don’t you feel shy?” Neshama (who is 84) said, “Nope. This here is what I done got. This is what me being alive looks like now.”  

This is what me being alive looks like now.

Yep, this is me. 

I’ll take it. And I’ll love it. 

Because there’s not time for anything less.