Ageing is very strange !

 

Recently, I came across an old photograph of myself.

For a few moments, I simply looked at it. And strangely, it felt as though I was looking at a girl I knew very well. She looked so young. So carefree. So unaware of how quickly life would move.

And now the grey strands growing quietly through my hair make me look surprisingly mature now. There was a time when I would have wanted to hide them. Today, they feel more like little reminders of everything I have lived through.

There was a day when I was running around my childhood home without ever wondering where the years would go. And now, I sit quietly on my couch, sometimes wondering where all those years disappeared.

My face has changed.
My priorities have changed.
My body has slowed down.

The mirror reveals the dark circles, the fine lines, the tiredness that I sometimes wish I could erase. My hair reveals the years I would rather keep hidden.

But there is something the mirror cannot show. It cannot show how much stronger I have become at holding myself together. I don't get excited about the smallest things the way I once did. But somehow, ageing has made me more emotional about the things that truly matter.

I no longer feel the need to impress everyone. I have started valuing the people who stayed. The conversations that felt ordinary at the time but became precious memories later. The people who made me laugh. The ones who broke my heart. The ones I had to forgive. And perhaps, most importantly, myself.

For years, I spent so many nights worrying about things that seemed unbearably important at the time. I lost sleep over people, decisions, possibilities, and fears about the future. Today, peace has become my greatest luxury. I don't want a life that merely looks successful from the outside but that feels peaceful from within.

Ageing has taken many things from me. It has taken away some of my speed, some of my innocence, some of my illusions, and perhaps even a few versions of myself that I once desperately wanted to hold on to.

But I don't think ageing is a tragedy anymore. Maybe  its not about losing youth but gaining depth. It has taught me that roots become stronger when the seasons change. That wrinkles are not flaws; they are evidence of expressions that have been repeated through years of living. And that a life does not have to be perfect to be meaningful.

Now, I carry a story within me now. A story of laughter and heartbreak. Of mistakes and forgiveness. Of people who stayed and people who left. Of places I have visited and places I have only dreamed about. Of beginnings, endings, disappointments, healing, lessons and memories.

And perhaps all of these are little pieces of evidence saying:

I lived.
I am living.
I am becoming.

I am not simply becoming older but more of myself.

One year at a time.
One beautiful, ordinary moment at a time.

-Dr Shruti Nabriya

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