I met one of my girlfriends for coffee, cake and a chat today, it's her birthday soon and I'll not be able to see her on the day so treating her to an afternoon out seemed the right thing to do. She's turning thirty, a milestone birthday, and is not feeling good about it; losing the two in front of her age is weighing heavily upon her and despite being a beautiful woman she's feeling that time is passing so quickly.
I came home and, over dinner, was telling my man about it and we chatted about age, getting older and about the passing of time.
My partner is older than I am and he has lived a lot of life...he does a pretty good job at understanding life which is how how he manages to get so much out of it I guess.
He listened to my retelling of the conversation I had with my friend, smirked a little in parts and nodded at others. I guess having been through these things himself, and probably being a man, gives him a different perspective on it than I have. He clarified a few points and then, quite cleverly, asked, are we really talking about you?
I immediately said an emphatic no! Then followed up with the truth and said, yes partly.
I've been feeling like life is racing by.
Dealing with the situation here, my terminally ill mother, and other pressurised situations, has left me feeling robbed of time. We've spoken about it before, however hearing my girlfriend talk about it made things hit home a little more today.
My man understood completely and said some things that made me feel so wonderfully beautiful, desired, loved and valued which is just like him and he also said something that I found so lovely that I wanted to share it.
The benefit of the passage of time, getting older, is that you no longer feel the need to prove anything to yourself or anyone else. Instead, focus shifts to the pursuit of experiences, small moments that make your heart sing, feel beautiful, happy, engaged and settled. You store those experiences away in your heart and soul and your memory draws them forth at some later time for you to gaze upon, to feel once more, and find value all over again. We can't stop time but we can choose what we do with it, the experiences we have as it passes.
That wasn't exactly what he said, but it was something like that.
We went on to talk about it more and I came to understand the simple wisdom or message in what said.
Life isn't about collecting things or staying young and beautiful...Life is there to be lived, experienced, and shaped as we wish it to be and it's the experiences we gather along the way that help us create a beautiful life so we can look back on it and feel fulfilled and happy that we lived it the best we could.
Becca 💗