Whenever I travel, I am always watching to see what I learn from it, how it will change/expand me. The Western Caribbean cruise with my daughter, a new RN- thus the celebration, comes on the heels of turning 48 this month. I’ve never been separated from my husband so long, never taken a trip with this daughter alone…so a few previously unknown variables.
One thing that began to assert itself early on was the comments from men and women alike. It has taken me by surprise. Most people have thought Alyssa and I are friends, sisters…With Alyssa at 22 and irresistibly beautiful, I am obviously overwhelmed that anyone would say we were sisters. So at first, I wrote it off as polite flattery. As the trip wore on, I came to realize that is their perception as it kept repeating with different people. What I thought was a joke early on has now morphed into a new reality for me. All that nutritional work with an anti-aging emphasis must be paying off…Alyssa summed it up this morning when she said, “Well mom, one thing’s for sure. If Donn died, you wouldn’t have any trouble getting a 19 year old…” Like I would want one…
She said this because yesterday was spent in the company of a family from New Jersey and two sons, age 19 and 20. The 20 year old wouldn’t leave Alyssa alone, and kept engaging, so finally she relented and enjoyed her time playing in the ocean on trampolines and rock climber’s “ice burgs” with him. He was nice. His brother, Dale- the 19 year old, seemed to be ever present over me…hovering….and so the day ended without ever have been able to really escape his persistent attentions to every perceived need I might have had. Towels handed to me, drink refilled, the hand for the stair step extended, conversation even though I didn’t wish to talk…He even became protective when a friend casually put their arm around my shoulders…doesn’t he have anything better to do? Where are the girls his age, I was thinking…He was one of three on this trip that seemed to think being 48, a mother, a wife was just more challenging if they made the conquest.
What I learned is twofold. First, that age is a perception, an acceptance of a timeline. In my experience I never accepted or “bought into” that timeline, thus I am timeless. Accepting that creates a physical change, not just mental or emotional. The aging process doesn’t seem to “latch on” if it isn’t really accepted or believed in… I have consciously made the decision to begin my eternity now, living outside time and space in a secret Kingdom- a parallel universe to ours where anything is possible and growth is relentlessly stimulating. That leads to the second thing I learned. It’s the content, not the package that is important and has the ability to sustain a friendship or a partnership. Of course, I already knew that but being confronted with so much youth, beauty, muscle and yet- shallowness within, it bears stating.
Yet I am realizing in a greater way that the experience of having been on this earth longer and mining the depths of our hearts is more appealing to me in others than youth or beauty – In both men and women. I often wonder how single men find wives. It’s even hard for me as a woman to find “a good woman…” someone who I can talk with, someone who can teach me something I don’t know, someone who sees deeper than the surface, someone who is on a trajectory of growth and expansion…it isn’t even about education at this point, because one of young men, a 34 year old lawyer, had more than myself- book learning anyway…. This ship is full of youth, beauty … but the horizon is so easily found in most people. Within an hour, I know the end of them. I need a boundless shore in those that are in my experience taking up my precious time, apart from my children who hopefully will develop their boundlessness.
I prefer a renaissance man/woman, the spiritually deep, and a philosopher, a scholar, brilliant and multifaceted…all simultaneously evident. Great sculpted bodies glorying in their unlined youth and attractiveness have no power to compete in the hard won arena of a fascinating, well rounded mind and depth of spirit. A face unlined has no power to move me as does the face and physique that reflects a well planned journey; eyes that reveal an endless universe of eternity and the light of the Cosmos, the God of all Creation evident and beaming strongly out from their depths. The youthful in years- most at least- haven’t either discovered or earned this by hard pursuit yet. While it’s been flattering to attract this age group, it has only served to confirm the success of my timelessness, my anti-aging protocols and my preference for more in life.
Our society is so deluded to think that youth is desirable. Working hard to stay young WHILE mining our depths is desired above all. The young in years would be wise to care for the surface and diligently work to find their depths, feed them, expand them. I need more out of this life than most people even are aware exists to be had….
