Embrace My Wrinkles

I will embrace my wrinkles. They are a blessing. 

They mean I have experienced the glorious outdoors. I am so fortunate to live in a beautiful place surrounded by numerous lakes, mountains, and forests to explore. My back yard is the very place others dream about and save up to visit. 

They mean that I have laughed. After struggling with debilitating shyness and anxiety for the first two decades of my life, I now know what it feels like to both believe true joy does not exist, and then to believe that joy is never proportionate to positive circumstance. Joy can be experienced, in abundance actually,  throughout the stressful uncertainty and lack of control in daily life.

They mean that I have worked hard. I have faced battles head on instead of giving up. I've accomplished more than I ever thought possible. I've overcome shyness, fear, abuse, rape, anorexia, alcoholism, and more and created a satisfying life in spite of where I came from. 

They mean that I have felt deeply. I have discovered the love that makes you care for others and want the best for them, even when you can't do anything about it. I have felt a mix of emotions, from the encompassing love for my own offspring,  to the unexpected empathy for complete strangers.

They mean I've had the unrivalled gift of aging. My family did not have to mourn the outcome of my leukemia diagnoses eleven and a half years ago. Instead, my family gained another member through me as I experienced the miracle of giving birth to a daughter after cancer. 

I will embrace my wrinkles.

Because if I do not I am going to waste time worrying, covering, hiding, reminiscing, and spending money, and not experiencing the freedom of loving who I am and where I am in the timeline of my unique life. 

I will embrace my wrinkles. 

Even if you don't. I have dear friends who are 20 years younger and who are 20 years older than myself. Age is only a number and everyone has something individual to offer. If you find my aging appearance hinders getting to know me, that is your own loss.

It should not result in a loss anywhere, at anytime. Ever. Because if we all embraced our wrinkles, then they would not be seen as a hindrance or embarrassment. 

They would be a blessing.

Door Number Ten

I opened door number one and saw all the undesirable housework that demanded to be done. And hadn't been done the last ten times I opened this door. 

I opened door number two and saw my precious daughter sleeping soundly. I longed to cuddle next to her, for I didn't know how many more times I would get a chance to be that close to someone who once felt like an inseparable extension of me but now was becoming her own autonomous entity that had a mind as imaginative and untameable as my own.

I opened door number three and heard the music calling me to sing loudly and freely with no inhibition. Song after song begged to resonate out of me. 

I opened door number four and saw the pencil and the paper. Exploring faces, loved ones, in a moment in time. Bringing them to life to share with others in a way I never could if I did not enter that door. 

I opened door number five and saw the words in my mind recklessly flowing in all directions, looking for some comprehensible connection that would bring them freedom. They called me to write them down and permit them to purposefully become. 

I opened door number six and saw the beckon of a welcoming book. A story that reminded me there were lives glaringly stranger than mine. Sorrows dreadfully deeper. Opportunities better grasped. Secrets more hidden. 

I opened door number seven and my mind longed to aimlessly calculate. Finding numbers on autopilot as its thoughts actively wandered but had no mandate to commit.

I opened door number eight and felt the exhilaration of running and heard my heart pounding methodically like my feet hitting the pavement. 

I opened door number nine and felt my spirit long to embrace unconditional love. To bask in humble thankfulness for all I am able to experience and to supplicate for all that is to come.

But...

I entered door number ten and lazily sat wasting my time flipping from one internet page to the next curiously looking at topics I would not rightfully give priority to at the end of another busy day.