I can't really write extensively about ageing
yet, as for me it's a process that has only just started to bed in. Clearly if I look at a photo of myself aged 25, I can really see the difference now, a little over ten years later. A lot happened in those ten years; no wonder! I am more conscious of
being older rather than of aging. I have a girl who helps me with the children in school holidays; she's a lovely girl, exactly what any mother would want in a daughter. She is precisely half my age! When I see the endless possibilities of her life stretching out ahead (she is in her first year of University now) it almost takes my breath away. She has no idea how many roads there will be to go down, how many choices to be made and how much of it will either pass her by or get decided for her by some other cosmic force.
It is incredible how the age process creeps up, how the laughter lines appear, those tell-tale signs on the skin, grey hairs that need a six week colour cover-up. Certain clothes start to somehow look inappropriate, without really knowing exactly why. Skirts can seem just a touch too short. A preoccupation with comfort over style. WAIT! No, surely not...
not that! Isn't the requirement that one always stays 'young at heart'? As is often the case, these things are all
in the mind..
Fundamentally though I find there is something empowering about getting older, even with its cruel little reminders in my appearance. I know my mind now, I know what suits me, I have much more confidence than I did ten years ago...so that outweighs a wrinkle or two, surely?
