Around the Sun Again

"Everybody knows it sucks to grow up and everybody does,
It's so weird to be back here, let me tell you what.
The years go on and we're still fighting it, we're still fighting it."

I can honestly say I'm a fortunate soul who doesn't mind growing older. I'm fairly sure much of this "not minding" is the middle aged body and mind-me, who knows nothing of inhabiting an old and broken body. I'm sure there will come a day when my body fails me and I'll have my gripes and days when it will 'suck', but right now my boat is in the water where it is and I'll row it as best I can.

The months of watching my mother whither from cancer and then pass brought forth that part of me I believed in but had never had cause to practice. Namely the belief we are not our body; that we are spiritual beings experiencing a divinely human form. This human form doesn't define who we are.

I hope it may have given my mother some comfort, some peace throughout her struggle and into her final days when I would hold her hand and look into her eyes and say with all the courage I could muster that our bodies cannot define us. I know it brought peace to me to speak words I believed in, words that then sustained me in her passing and that still bring comfort.

So I don't mind growing older even though my body is changing and will continue to deteriorate and then break down beyond all hope. It's happening to everyone I love- to everyone I see... the same thing is taking place: we are dying. But, my hope doesn't rest in my body not failing me, it rests in my knowing the illusion is perfect and that in it's perfection I see through it and into another reality.

It's a privilege to be alive- at any age. "As a white candle in a holy place, so is the beauty of an aged face." Joseph Campbell