Bittersweet
I did a slightly longer yoga youtube this morning. This particular routine was mostly slow stretching and twisting with a few strength poses added now and then. Stretching moves feel good and feel sad at the same time. I know I need to stretch. I love the way I feel after everything is loosened up and flexible. But the actual stretching is a very visceral reminder of how inflexible my body has become with time. I once could sit in full lotus position. Now I struggle to sit up completely straight when I sit on the floor cross-legged. I once could press my face into my knees in forward fold. Ha! That will never happen again. So I do yoga with the goal of not losing ground, rather than the aspiration of gaining ground. Anything better than that is a bonus.
While I'm doing my yoga, I often close my eyes to enjoy the stretch. This morning I didn't, and happened to catch a glimpse of my arms as I reached upward.
I am not sure how it is possible to forget that getting older not only means not being able to bend into a pretzel anymore, but it also means that skin has lost it's elasticity. I remember being fascinated with those tiny creases in my grandmother's arms. I've had this wrinkly saggy skin for a long time already, but it still surprises me when I see it so clearly.
And my hair. Even though I like the way it has grayed, I still think of myself as having brown hair. Crazy.
I don't really want to go back in time. There were things I loved about being young. There are things I love about being older.
When I am just living my life, I find age to be kind of slippery. Maybe that is why so many sentences seem to start with, "It seems like only yesterday." Even young people use that phrase a lot. I wish I could remember which writer said that it is because we are timeless beings we chafe at the passing of time, both at how fast it passes and how slow it passes.
My screen saver is a random mix of old photos. As I see them, I can feel what I felt at those moments. I know what it felt like to hold my now taller-than-me grandson as a baby in my arms. I know the feeling of rocking and singing his mother to sleep in her infancy when she was unable to relax. I know the feeling of sitting in my grandmother's lap and hearing her sing. I know what Dad's laugh sounds like, and the pattern of Mom's veins on the back of her hands.
It goes by fast. We hate it and we love it. I miss watching my children grow, and I love knowing them as adults. Each time has its own beauty.
Maybe that is part of why we cherish every beautiful and momentary sunset.
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