I'm Looking Out of the Same Eyes

When I arrived at my son's kindergarten class with his birthday treat, two little girls rushed to open the locked door for me.

"Are you his mom?" asked the blond one.

"Yes!  Are you his friend?" I asked back.

"You look old," she said.

So, she never told me whether or not she was his friend.  She only told me, in those three words, that she was not my friend.

I wanted to retort, but couldn't think of anything both clever and kind quickly enough.  She bested me.

And, the funny thing is, yes, I am getting older, all the time, but I feel better than I used to.  I'm deliberately choosing the things I want in my life, instead of waiting to see what falls into it.  I'm achieving my goals, step by step.  I am mindful about my living--not just living--most of the time now.  In more ways than one, I am almost in shape again, after several years of childbearing.

I have a beautiful turquoise suit sitting in my closet that I plan to wear soon.  I checked it the other day.  It was still in perfect condition.  I remembered as I fingered the buttons that I wore it on my oldest child's first day of kindergarten.

Which, honestly, does not seem all that long ago.

Yet, it was.

I felt a flash of shame that I would still have something in my closet that ancient.  I once worked with a woman who told me that she threw out all of her clothes and her daughters' clothes every season and bought new ones.  How would it be to have a whole new wardrobe every three months?

Jealousy, fifteen percent.  Shock at her wastefulness, seventy percent.  Knowledge that I enjoy wearing  favorite clothes again as the seasons change and would be missing a whole level of joy in my life if I lived that way, ten percent.  Anticipating the thrill of putting on and zipping up something that I wore years and years ago, when I was pretty, five percent.

That's how I felt about her choices.  Not that they aren't right for her, but they wouldn't exactly suit me.

Should I throw out the suit, I wondered?  Why?  It's in perfect condition.  And, very soon, I should be able to wear it again.

Not that I will ever be as young again as I was that late summer day when I hugged my firstborn goodbye in front of his school.  But I am still here.  And I still hope to do something meaningful with my life, just like I hoped to then.

Honestly, I seem to me to be looking out of the same eyes I've been looking out of since as far back as I remember.  Sure, the furniture got a little shorter a long time ago, but I seem from inside my eyes to still be the same.

As long as I am still here, I intend to be me.  And if I look old--or my clothes do--to others, I guess that's for them to evaluate behind their own eyes.

The turquoise suit and I are on trajectories that are leading right into each other.  Any day now, they'll meet.  And in that moment is exactly where I want to be.