Being With Time

Again and again someone in the crowd wakes up, he has no ground in the crowd, and he emerges according to much broader laws. He carries strange customs with him and demands room for bold gestures. The future speaks ruthlessly through him.

Rainer Maria Rilke


According to the agreements that we human beings have regarding TIME, I've officially been on the planet for forty years, and here I am; in that place where my philosophies on life collide head-on with the gray hairs I can no longer pretend I don't see in my bathroom mirror. They are both perfectly aware that they are expected to form some sort of mutual respect, although neither one of them is at all certain as to what ought to be done about the other. :)

I confess, I never imagined that aging would feel like this. I remember expecting excitement and change, disappointments and regrets, wrinkles and teen aged children, and a history at least as full of mistakes as victories.

I was right... about all of those, but I underestimated myself, too. I expected to feel middle-aged. What I didn't expect was to fall head-over-heels in love at thirty-six, or to feel vital and pretty rather than past my prime. I never expected to be, in spirit at least, as young as I ever was, or to discover a timelessness and an indestructibility about the part of me that is truly me.

I suppose I expected I would know everything I needed to know by now; to have mastered the art of living, and learning, and parenting, and good neighboring, and to have done it all better than my ancestors, and nearly as well as my personal heroes. I expected to have achieved a high level of enlightenment, perhaps even to have peaked in personal growth at the great age of forty, rather than to discover that I am still something less than half as mature or experienced as I ought to be before I dare refer to myself as wise.

There are things I'm starting to get right. I find my appreciation for simple things increasing, and I am, without a doubt, gentler and easier to please. I enjoy my children on a deeper level, and in a whole new way. I love people; I love to hear their stories and know who they are. I have a great respect for the talents of others, and a genuine admiration for the things that they are able to cause and create. I find peace in music, art, beauty and nature. I have a deeper awareness of the abundant blessings that are mine to enjoy, and I am truly grateful for them.

The older I get, the more my heart aches for the things in the world that I cannot help. The wars that make no sense, the orphans that have no one to love them, the parents who have no nourishment for their starving children, and those children themselves, who will never know a comfortable night in a warm bed with a full stomach. Poverty, prejudice, selfishness, ignorance, apathy, arrogance; things that barely crossed my radar as a child, are now profoundly NOT OK with me. My heart breaks, but I don't know what to do.

I have screwed up on a grand scale, and more than once. I have hurt people I love, probably much more often than I am even aware of. I have hurt some people to the extent that they have disappeared from my life, and I'm too embarrassed, or too afraid, to go looking for them. I have mismanaged the parenting of my children so badly at times that I wake up in the middle of the night with a head full of worries for their future, and a heart full of sadness for the pain and upset I have caused them. I have let precious moments slip away virtually unnoticed, moments that I ought to have cherished, and that I can never get back. I have made mistakes that to this day I have no idea how I will rectify, and I make mistakes still. Sometimes carelessly and, I will sheepishly admit, sometimes with malice aforethought. They all seem to come back to bite me; some just have more teeth than others.

So, as it turns out, even after forty years here I still have much to learn; it's a good thing then that I have discovered the freedom that an openness to the future's unlimited possibilities will provide. I know that my future is mine to create. I have witnessed over and over again proof of the power that we, as spirits with a divine nature, have to create with our word. I know I was created out of love, I know I am loved, and I trust the design of my life. It is designed exclusively for me, so how could it be anything but perfect?

I will still screw up, but I'm committed to being teachable... humble. I'm willing to be proven wrong. I'm not resigned; I'm accepting. I welcome more people into my life. I am love, power, passion, contribution and enchantment! I'm ready to be blown away... awed and amazed and inspired. I'm committed to making a difference. I'm open to having new adventures, being present in the moment and going with the flow. Life will show up however life shows up, but I get to design my experience of it. I know how to get lit up, and how to stay lit up. It's not easy, but it's simple, and I know that integrity is the access. I will be whom I will be, and I will love whom I will love, and I will create what I will create, and all just because I said so. This is my life, and I say it's on fire!

So, let's see what you've got, Forty. Bring it on. :)