Youth

When you are young, people will tell you, "Do it while you are young." " Enjoy it while you're young". And the people who really know what they are talking about will tell you, "You are only young once" because that is, truly, the long and short of it. But no one will tell you that you are thinking all wrong, as if your youth has an expiration date. 21 you are young. 41 you are not.

Every now and then someone you view as truly ancient will tell you that you are only as young as you feel. Okay. But you are also only as young as you are, and all of these things have to coexist in you as truth as you move and love and do what you do. I am learning what I find it hard to articulate to others: youth is not something you have but more like a shadow that moves with you. And just like a man that don't want you no more, she will begin to spiritually withdraw until the coast is clear to jump ship completely. And one day you wake up honey and you are you, minus that special something that excused you, that ran your operations system, that set your goal calendar. You are now a new you that you may or may not welcome, and no one, not even women, prepares women for this. 

One day, you are expected to just take out your First Aid kit and begin to treat the wounds youth left behind and begin to transition to the mature you, the senior you, that respects money, takes vitamins, and gives a sh%t! And don't be that old person who is haunted by youth traumas like financial stuff and love ailments. Life has time for you like it has time for itself, and you go from a work in progress to a relic that hurts people's eyes. No one wants to see you until there is something to see. And to think, just 20 years ago, you were dancing on a table someplace. You will remember these times until you die with pristine precision, which is both beautiful and cruel. What we are talking about here is the equivalent of catching a firefly in your hands. The bulb is flickering. The end.