Well, folks, it’s happening. Despite my decision years ago to not age, Mother Nature is refusing to cooperate. How annoying.
Phin and I were out for our morning walk earlier this week and I noticed that my distance vision was not as sharp as I remember it being. For a number of years I’ve had a very mild prescription for glasses to sharpen my distance vision. I didn’t really need them to see, just to reduce strain caused by an astigmatism. Now it seems their necessity may be upon me.
Of course I went home and immediately started Googling to find eye strengthening exercises that I’ve been doing each night before I go to bed. Mother Nature may not be willing to help me out, but she can’t tell me not to help myself.
This week I also began to find a couple of consistent white hairs, not just stray ones few and far between. At first I plucked them and dropped them in the trash convinced that this was just a fluke. My few and far between white hairs obviously just all decided to show up on the same day at the same time, but certainly others would not be joining them any time soon.
Still, I wasn’t taking any chances. And so I started to color my hair, not just to mix up my look, but because it’s now actually needed. Those white hairs are a reminder of the one thing I will never be able to do, no matter how hard I try – stop time from passing.
Why is aging so tough? Why do we fight it every step of the way (with or without Oil of Olay)?
We hang on to what we know, and we know youth. We don’t know old age. We have no idea what it has in store for us, but we’ve heard stories. Scary stories of illness and pain and difficulty. And those stories are enough to make us want to stay right where we are.
I got home yesterday to find the latest copy of Yoga Journal in my mailbox. This month’s theme? Aging, with grace. The Universe has one wicked sense of humor. It’s also supremely skilled at giving us exactly the message we need exactly when we need to hear it. If only we could quiet down long enough to hear it!
I made my way upstairs to my apartment to begin reading the messages the Universe clearly wanted me to understand, but not until after I finished my eye exercises.
Christa Avampato 