My sisters do not have children. They are gracefully, gradually, gently growing old.
I have a teenage daughter. I am handing over the baton, and my daughter is taking it with an explosion of beauty, competence and vitality, her every glorious step toward womanhood seeming to mirror the degeneration of the energetic young lady I once was into a tired old woman who is nothing special to the world.
Little by little, I have witnessed the bloom of her beauty in awe and wonder, just as I have discovered sign after sign that I am headed quickly into old age: wrinkle here, flab there, aches and pains.
This experience with aging, and with seeing my beautiful daughter evolve, has taught me a valuable lesson:
All those women who, earlier in life, I only ever saw as old women were once powerful and vibrant in their youth and beauty too.
Of course I knew, technically, that those old women were young once. Everyone was young once. I’ve occasionally seen a photo of an old woman when she was young and thought “Wow.” But when you go through the passing of the baton, that phenomenon hits you like a gut punch. You have overlooked all the beauty of the other women surrounding you, because it had faded before it could reach you; but as you make the transition from young to old, your eyes open to others.
But it was there all along, in all these other old women, whom time had passed by long before their paths crossed mine.
Just as I will be invisible to the women who come after me, who will discount me as some old woman, as the next generation sail on their newly unfolded wings for a few glory years themselves.
We remember in ourselves our youth and passion and energy and optimism, and we may still see ourselves that way, which is a vicious trick, because perhaps no one else does.
Or perhaps that treasure of a high school best friend who, yes, can pull that version of you back up from the deepest recess of memory.
How weird is it that you see two different versions of yourself on the same day, with the same clothes and hairstyle and makeup? At one glance at your reflection – in a mirror or a picture – you look great, which makes you proud; yet at another glance, you look haggard and puffy and overused and worn out. How can we be those two women at once? Which woman do other people see when they look at us?
One of the greater physical challenges I face every day is carrying the cat upstairs at night. Who would have ever thought?
Granted, both are extremes. This massive, fat cat weighs 19 pounds. The old-house stairs are excruciatingly steep, higher than they are wide, so most people do have to hang on tight to the handrail to get up them. I hold out the cat laid across my left arm while I use my right arm to hoist myself up the steps.
Yet I remember when I used to lift a 35-weight with my arm in basically that same position. I remember when I literally would run, not walk, up flights of stairs.
As I now struggle up the stairs, my lovely girl walks up them with grace and speed. No doubt once she gets up to her room she’ll be fiddling with her hair or trying on new outfits, admiring herself in front of the triple mirror.
Let her. It is her time in life to revel in her own beauty.
It is her turn now, and I enjoy her enjoyment of youth and beauty.
