On aging

I recently celebrated a birthday.  In the days leading up to it I'd been thinking about aging.  I may have caught myself staring into the mirror and seeing if I had more wrinkles.  Or gray hairs.  But if I was it was a fleeting activity because getting older has only been good to me.

I've grown in ways that only years have allowed.  As a teenager and twenty something I focused so much energy on my perceived flaws.  Seems I was always comparing myself, my image, to someone or something else.  Trying to be perfect and never realizing I already was.

Age has changed me and not by any conscious effort on my part.  The calendar pages flipping year after year have allowed me to appreciate these legs, arms and torso.  They have carried me and my babies well.  And if I do have a moment of insecurity, it is just that . . . a moment.  And that moment passes as quickly as it came. 

My daughters performed this self-choreographed salsa number for me on my birthday.  Such beautiful, beautiful girls dancing and laughing.  Working together.  Carefree.  Their arms and legs working exquisitely.  Effortlessly.  Deftly.

I work at instilling my girls with confidence.  With self esteem.  Self worth.  Self appreciation.  And I absolutely hope that they don't waste years of their lives agonizing, comparing and fretting they way that I did.  I hope that they know . . . genuinely know . . . that they are unequaled.  That they are perfectly perfect.  Exactly the way that they are.



-dana