I used to think age came upon us suddenly, that one day we were young, one day we were not.

The truth is, we walk softly and quietly into age, one day we are simply there, and it startles us every time we realize it.

It comes slowly on a whispering wind, on tiptoes of silken slippers. One day it is just there, and it is amazing.

At least once a week I look in the mirror while shaving or brushing my teeth and I ask: “is that really me? Could that really be me?” Because one of nature’s tricks is this – the world may see you as old or older, but your mind never does.

So the two realities never quite meet. Age is the great wonder, the great dissonance. For much of your life,  you never think about, and then you have to be careful to not think of anything else. Nobody wants to grow older, I think, and when we are young, we can’t really comprehend it. It is too remote, and I think nature keeps the consciousness of aging from us so that we will retain the courage and drive to seek new experience and keep to the adventure that is life.

Still, for me, aging is the best part of life that I have encountered so far.  I was so poor at being young.

I am learning who I am, understanding something of the world, I have seen enough to have some humor about it, and some perspective.  I am gratified to be able to pass some of what I have learned along, nobody would have wanted to hear my ideas when I was young, they were either wrong or bad.

In a sense, one gift of aging is a certain kind of wisdom, if we keep the channels open and keep learning, and keep out of the quicksand trap that is nostalgia, the disease of melancholy.

I will be honest. Age has taken some things from me – strength in my legs, my hair, agile knees,  a strong back, dreams for the distant future,  a heart that needed no help, the sweetness of deep sleep.

But when I see what gifts age has brought me, I can only be thankful for it, and grateful.

Age has given me what I wanted for so many years – me, my self. I walk in my own shoes now, I fit in my own soul. I have the life I love, the life I made for myself, not the life others imagined for me or demanded of me or expected of me. I have the life my heart always ached for. I am becoming the man I dreamed once that I might be.

I have learned that bad rules can be broken. That no one can teach me to live a life of fear and regret. I have learned that love can come at any time to anyone who does the hard work of opening to it. I don’t have to fit in with them, I can fit in with me. I can dance as though everyone is watching.

I have learned to let go of things, to accept the gains and the losses, the victories and defeats.

My mind is not a cluttered basement or dusty attic of old thoughts and wisdoms, of smugness and regrets, the window in my mind is always open to change, to new thoughts and ideas, new ways of looking at things. Death will come along soon enough, I won’t let my mind die first.

I am a good man, working to be better, and anyone who wishes to take this from me, or deny it to me is not my friend, does not belong in my life.

We walk softly and quietly into age, and like a dear old friend, one day she is just there.