stages of man (and woman)

Begin




Be



Begin again


Repeat.

----

Reinvention is the power in the game. Never keep on being the same thing, ever, for more than you can stand. Be something new, dig deep into the pockets of your nascent persona, mine those caverns for what they can return, then move on.

Truth is, you will never be the person you were, for time wounds all heels, as they say. However, do not ever look in the mirror and curse time for what it has taken from you, because it has given you so much more. The preening callous youth of 30 or more years ago can, in the you now, no longer conscience preening, but he can tend to poetry and gardens, can run a marathon, can imagine, can be patient with young grandchildren when his own children were nuisances who ruined his harmonious buzz, can yet stoke a ferocious fire for the same causes that nearly burned his youth to ashes.

Point of fact - the older man and woman, were once physically beautiful too. They also once had fire in their loins, smoke behind their eyes, and fuel enough in their bellies to carry them through entire lifetimes of expansion and experimentation. Why, we used-to-be- beautiful once thought we were the center of the earth. Nothing was better than who were were. Nothing was more important that what we thought, and did.

Until we weren't, it wasn't, and didn't.

*here comes the sucker punch that gets us all, if we're lucky enough to get old enough to experience it.*

In truth, it takes a long time to come to grips with aging, and how it changes us from the outside in, but at some point we turn to the reflection and look at ourselves and realize we can't just 'be' anymore, we must begin again.The 'we' we used to be is still housed in us, the 20 years of youth spent on youthful things like family, career, and responsibility are peeling away as the kids grow up, the career stabilizes, and responsibility shifts to a casual hand on the wheel every once in a while.

Life breaks open again. The shell loosens, and we either are cracking back open or we hide in the confines of the life we made the first time.

For me? No. No hiding.

I am turning 50 this year. Time to begin again.

God help you all.

;)

Tiff out.