on aging, on getting older, on growing wiser, on feeling younger: on the pain of growth and change

i am no longer an assortment of things that i used to be.  i'm not a recent college graduate. i'm not a newlywed.  nor am i in my early twenties, or a novice blogger, or new to education and teaching.

i am not a new peace corps volunteer.

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there's a weight that attends nearing 30.  not necessarily a negative weight, but a weight nonetheless.  the looming next steps on the game board of life- of parenthood, of forever home buying, of making the decision just exactly where will we celebrate christmas?- are ever present.  everything seems more real and less real, closer and farther away, more exciting and more daunting, more pressing and easier to push off to a later date.  closer than i want them to be, just out of reach when i want them in hand this moment.

*****

often when i speak about birthdays with volunteers of a similar age here, there's an airy sort of thought that our timeline has frozen back in america, that our life here is almost as a pause in a running video tape of our aging.  of course i will still be 25 when i return to america.  of course you will still be living here, working there, planning this, making decisions to do that.  of course we will pick up exactly where we left off, of course we'll be able fall right back in.  two years? it's nothing.

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the april before i moved to cambodia, i was in new orleans.  i met my grandmother, the grandparent whom i am closest to, for lunch, as we knew it may be one of the last times we'd see each other before i moved away for two years.  my aunt accompanied her, and we had delicious shrimp po' boys. we discussed the upcoming excitement, how my grandmother would miss us at christmas, how i had to be sure to write her letters and send her postcards- she loves postcards.  we hugged, and parted, me excited to share my adventures with her, and her excited to hear them.

***

august of last year, three weeks into my peace corps service, my grandmother, the grandparent whom i am closest to, had a brain bleeding, most nearly a stroke.  in an evening, she lost memory of her last fifty years- her children, her grandchildren, her life.  

**

christmas of last year, i spoke to my grandmother, the grandparent whom i'm closest to, for the first time since april.  she wasn't sure where i was, i'm not sure she knew who i was.  questions were repeated, answers were repeated, tears were held back, memories were gone.

*

i'd like to believe there has been some wisdom gained in recent years.  a wisdom encompassing a greater understanding of myself, of who i am, of what i'd like to change to become who i want to be.  

a recognition of those things that i cannot change, moreover, an acceptance of the good within.   

on balance, an active pursuit to challenge myself to not accept that being stubborn, or a fast thinker, or ambitious, or an overanalyzer are the essence of me.  

that being thus so can be useful and worthwhile in small doses, but maybe, just maybe, sometimes it's better to

relent, 

listen, 

fade, 

let go.

to live here and now, 

to stop and gaze, 

to value the people and memories 

before age and time poof it all away and force you to

relent, 

listen, 

fade, 

let go.