Get Ready With Me

The tiles on the floor of my bathroom aren’t ever cold. I’m not sure why but I’m grateful for this small comfort. Still slightly damp from the shower—I look at my face in the mirror. My eyes are red from another restless night but it’s okay. I’m okay and these days that feels like enough. I am content. Fingers play in my moisturizer and I scoop out more than the directions suggest—applying it on my brown skin. Am I using too much pressure? Not enough? 

I am almost 55. I consider my birthday to be my personal new year. I am not big on resolutions of any kind. I have kept promises to myself and I have broken them. I’ve started things and not finished them—and I have stared at dreams that have felt impossible and nodded triumphantly when I realized that I have accomplished a task that didn’t seem reasonable. Ridiculous even. This is what getting older feels like for me. A constant dance of moving forward, swiveling to gaze at the past and moving ahead towards what’s next. Sometimes, this happens at the same time. 

My fingers move up underneath my eyes. Bags, wrinkles show a life lived. Am I okay with getting older? Yes of course you and I say to myself. I mean so many people don’t get here. I’ve known, loved people who haven’t seen this age—at least not on this side of the veil. And…the shadow appears. A whisper, doubt. But you haven’t done so many things you said you would do. You’re not the same as you used to be. I push back for an instant and the wave of expectations from my own brain along with those of society slip inside the crevices like the cream in my wrinkles. But you are here. I feel this too. It’s not a scream but gentle like the promise of the moisturizer firming me up, even I don’t fully believe its claims. I am okay. 

Okay is enough but what okay means shifts as I do expanding with each day that I am fortunate enough to stand here looking at my face, my face in the mirror. I reach for the eye drops that excite me slightly—anticipating the icy cool sensation. I tilt my head back and smile knowing that my vision will be a little less cloudy.