older than i feel

i am older than i feel which by most accounts is a good thing. however, there are times when i am acutely aware of how old i am. sometimes it is a gradual realization. it comes slowly to me over the course of a conversation with someone who is of a much younger generation. typically conversation with this person is energizing and refreshing. i enjoy the freshness of the perspective that they bring to the table. but there are times when they speak to me of more personal matters, matters of the heart, and not of iranian human right issues, that i am acutely aware that i have lived longer. my heart has been broken, more than once. i have experienced disappointment at crippling depths. i have held people as they enter death and buried those who absence will always ache inside of me. i have come face to face with crazy. i have escaped death. i have been betrayed by those to whom i have been most loyal. i have lost that which i will not regain. i have acceptance in places where i do not have understanding. i have fallen into bed in physical pain from simply being responsible day after day, year after year for a rather long stretch of time.

i also have quicker flashes of reality. for example i recently learned that it is not necessary to allow for two spaces after a period. that rule is no longer taught and most people i interact with professionally were never taught that in school. they simply have not heard of a rule that was created in the age of typewriters. i also find it amusing when i meet a really handsome and bright 20 something that i now think 'that is the kind of boy i hope my daughter dates'. i usually think 'wow, i'm getting old' and move on. there is nothing that i need to think about. it just hits me dead center that i am older that i feel.

and then there are those moments, like i had this morning on the patio, where i am processing more information than the hour allows. i realized that for 3 years i have been struggling in one way or another with the same issue. i have had movement within the struggle, both forward and backward, but i am basically still in the middle of it. 3 years! in one thought i cannot believe 3 years have turned on the calendar. in another thought, i question my tight grip and unwillingness to let go. do i fear my age? trying something new at 41? the good news is that i no longer allow my life to be defined by one struggle because i am so keenly aware of the passage of time. so my age, my maturity, my life experience, has taught me to live and love regardless of the struggle or struggles that i may or may not figure out.