Wrinkles - Maybe Not What You Think

Wrinkles

One of the inevitable things about spending time on this planet, if we’re lucky, we’ll get wrinkles.

Lucky? Wrinkles is lucky?

You bet!

Let’s break this down for a bit.

I understand that in this day and age, wrinkles are seen as obviously getting older. In our culture, there are a lot of people who don’t put a value on older people - I’m not sure why. Maybe they think we’ve outlived our usefulness or don’t have anything to contribute to society.

Well here’s the thing, and I don’t mean to be mean about it but, I don’t give a poop about what someone else thinks about my ability to contribute.

I’m not living my life based on their evaluation of me or my worth.

If I lived to get even more wrinkly, I am planning on looking back at a life well-lived. 

That is not to say that my life was all rainbows and unicorns as it is not, was not, and I don’t plan on it in the future is such. 

However, if medical technology and science don’t change the way that we age, meaning that we are going to not only grow older but look older as well, I am going there KNOWING I will have plenty of laugh lines and wrinkles on my face and body.

You see, I love laughing and I know that as my body shows the years through its wrinkles, it is letting me know that I am here, I’ve been here, and I am so very grateful to still be here. 

Part of the problem with many people is their inability to accept where they are at in life. There could be many reasons why, but, for me, the goal is to celebrate where I am at currently…

It is my turn at this very minute to turn sixty-two. TAs of this writing, today is my birthday and I am going to celebrate it by going to dinner with my wife and daughter and having a nice rib-eye steak! Granted, at the gym today maybe my age kicked in a bit or I slept wrong as I felt a pain in my back that prevented me from working out. Part of the WISDOM that showed up was that I didn’t force it and try and work out through the pain. That’s something that I would have done in my younger and maybe less wise years.

I love my body because it has served me as well as I could for my entire life. 

I literally think of it as a friend and I have asked it to do so many things. 

A lifetime of sports.

A lifetime of being in the gym.

A lifetime of punches, kicks, and martial arts.

Thousands and thousands of miles of running - many of them on the pavement.

My body has always done the very best it could and I think of it as the oldest, dearest, and most loyal friend I’ve had in this lifetime. 

It has taken so much and asked for so little and now, because the body is getting older, doesn’t quite work as quickly or powerfully as it did before, and because it is starting to get more wrinkles, I’m going to not like it, feel bad about it, and get down?

No.

Not happening.

I see the changes in my body as battle scars of a life well-lived. I know that my body will do the very best it can - no matter what until my last breath.

I am so incredibly grateful to have had this body as an avatar, companion, and tool to live the life that I have.

I thank God every day for giving me this amazing gift - life, and yes, in this aging, getting slower, and wrinkly body.