Getting Older

“I keep getting older
and my dreams are getting sober too.
I miss their wild ways.
And I’m still getting scared,
by the time I’m feeling ready
it might be too late,
as I keep getting older.”

Johnnyswim

I can’t imagine I’m the only person in the world who is so frequently moved by music. ‘Moved’ isn’t even the right word. Whatever word means “Oh my goodness, I’m so overwhelmed with these feelings I don’t know what to do, but I have to do something.” That word. How a song writer can put these normal words we use all the time in just such a way that they stay with me for days, weeks even after hearing them. Then to match them with the notes that can bring me to tears in a matter of a few moments, even on their own—that’s a whole other subject. Obviously, things are just catchy sometimes (‘We don’t talk about Bruno…’), but I’m not talking about those songs.

I’ve never been a song-writer myself. Just could never get the hang of it, and since there are so many out there who more than understand the assignment, I gave up trying. Instead, I receive songs as if they’re gifts just for me. I spend long hours thinking about the words other people write and how they make me feel, and what they do for my heart. So I’d like to share the gift that this song “I Keep Getting Older” by Johnnyswim gave to me. You’ll have to listen for yourself to make up your own mind.

It’s wildly important to me that I don’t take for granted these years that keep getting added onto my life. Youth is so praised, and adored, so coveted-after and longed-for. I often find myself thinking, if only that person knew the power they had…if only I had been a little better 20 years ago, more focused on the bigger picture. I’ve begun to realize there’s a lot of “if only” in my brain’s conversation with itself, a comparison habit that has long plagued me.

Youth is a gift, there is no doubt, but how much more so is the privilege of getting older? Getting to look back on the life you’ve already lived and learned from is an even greater gift. Those brain-conversations are deterring from the “right now” that will itself be an “if only” only a short time from now. I’m so tired of thinking of the ways that things could have been, or where I would be if things had gone differently. The hurts and the pains that could have possibly been avoided, how I could have shown up better for myself and the people around me. How I could have better coped with my parents’ divorce instead of letting it lead me into the darkest time of my life. That list could go on and on. And on…and on. Forever. A million, infinity, in fact are the amount of ways I could have done better, that people could have done better for me, I’m sure of it. However, the longer I live (a whole 34 years—how OLD that used to feel!), the more I realize I wouldn’t change a single negative experience I have lived through.

There’s a lot to be said for comfort. I’ve spent a good amount of my life uncomfortable. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes against my will. The times that I have strived and struggled to get into a comfortable space, I have found myself to be the most bored. Comfort is boring. There is a place for it, and certainly a need for it at times in our lives, but when has comfort ever brought with it the opportunity for growth?

I want to be ever-changing. To feel the fear of not knowing what’s around the corner, or what I’m supposed to do with it when I get there. The itch of growth, the stretch of seeing something you’ve seen a hundred times before, but somehow it looks different. I want to change my mind, and my heart about things that require a different perspective than the one I’ve known all my life. We need that change, to be able to accept the ever-evolving world around us, and our fellow humans that inhabit it with us.

Every single one of those turbulent times either brought upon me by myself, or by someone else, molded me into the human I am today.

And I am proud of her.

She is resilient. She is often wrong, and tries to admit it. She is fierce, and can be mean. She knows she’s learning. She makes mistakes, but takes risks. She is strong. She is gentle. She can be weak, and knows it’s OK. She forgets all of this sometimes. She is mindful and passionate. She is self-aware. She tries kindness as often as she can remember, and fails just about as often. She will cry. She is honest. She will speak. She constantly looks for ways to heal. She constantly remembers old pain. She will be quiet. She doesn’t want to ‘just get to the end.’ She is present. *She will go back and edit this list, more than once.*

If I can ever call behind me to the girl I once was, if she exists in another universe, I hope she hears the echo over and over again…

Don’t just try to get to the end. Be scared. Be uncomfortable, and find what’s only for you while you’re there. Find the gift, and then keep looking for the next one.

To paraphrase a quote I love (with too many sources to find exactly who said it first) age is something we cannot regret, because it is something denied to so many of us.

Accept the inevitability of the change promised to us all, and *spoiler alert* we just aren’t going to get it right most of the time.

Like twice. Maybe twice we’ll get it just right. #noragrets