Face It

I'm old. Sadly, I'm very old. I'm older than, for many reasons, I'd ever thought I'd be.

I don't know how it happened. One minute I was whining about how hard it was to get a job without years of experience then, seemingly moments later, I was bemoaning the reality of the senior citizen.

The person in the mirror screams, "Who are you?" I agree. This reflection is not someone I know. I expect that any glance mirror-ward will find a 20- year-old, full of the blush of youth and devoid of wrinkles. What awaits me is a face I can barely recognize. Where once there were eyes, alert and bright, all I now see are bags and bags under the bags. The crow’s-feet are invisible (I'm happy about that) until I smile. How unfair is that? As long as I'm miserable, the wrinkles won't pile on? I'm afraid to laugh.

Applying eyeliner is an adventure in dexterity. Also in pointlessness. How still must I keep my hand to chart the proper course, and avoid trailing the black or brown lines cheek-ward?

What about these creases that the untrained eye would think were smoker's lines? Wrinkles from a lifetime of sucking nicotine? Totally unfair. I never smoked other than the odd fag or two when, in my youth, I was in an Irish pub world with a horde of smokers. These are scars, I'll have you know, acquired years apart in attempting to break up dog fights: one when I was 15, the other only a few years ago. I wear them as trophy badges of my cherished years with my beloved dogs. Apparently not beloved to each other, but always cherished by me.

Linda Ronstadt constantly moved me back in the '70s. She sang about "the tracks of my tears." I understood her 50 years ago and my face provides the perfect canvas for her lament. Michael Jackson lyrically described "the man in the mirror" as someone who needed to change his ways. How could I have changed mine? Would different life decisions have left me unblemished, instead of with scars that track my decisions and reactions, good or bad?

I gaze at myself in the mirror, arranging and rearranging my face into different "moods". Eventually, I decide that only when I neither smile nor frown does my face look relatively crease-free.

But I smile when I'm happy or amused, and frown when anyone would look displeased. Without such expressions reflecting the tracks of my tears and smiles, I truly would not have existed. Not in any fulsome way.

"Look at me." Something I've never implored anyone to do. But I'm asking myself. I'm bemoaning the lines and crevices that scream "You're old." When did this happen, I wonder, every time I work up the nerve to regard myself in the mirror?

There's a point after which all the clever, expert shading and makeup in the world won't fool anyone.

Accept it. You're old. But, remember, so many friends and colleagues from your youthful days and haunts haven't made it to this day. You're a survivor. Against all odds, for the most part. And you must accept that your face exclaims your age. Remember what you've weathered, the bad and, occasionally, the good. You've got laugh lines, for goodness sake. Surely it was happy times that etched those on your face. The face. This face.

You may not like the lines that the sad and hard times have cut into your skin, but each and every one traces your life story. Don't look away. Stare if you must. This is you. This is who you were and who you are. It's a map, your face, of every road you've decided to take and how everyone you've encountered has affected your chosen path.

Linger on this face. Love it. Hug it. Feel it fully. You may not want to be old, but it's what life has afforded you. You've been saved to bear witness to the days that you believe, sadly, have been lost.

Those kids who don't have time for you and your ways are pliable. They have years to go before they're finally formed. Ignore your wrinkles and, at every opportunity, get in their faces. Let them know that age is nothing to be feared. It's their future if they're sufficiently blessed to live as long as you.

"We are all just prisoners here, of our own device." The Eagles' 'Hotel California' - yes from the '70s - advised us. They were partially right. We are the sum of our own decisions and devices. But we are not prisoners. Your world may not be as large an oyster as it was 50 years ago, but it's still yours to map.

Those lines that so upset you when you dare a glimpse at the mirror are your story. You may not regard your story with fondness, but it is yours, it is consequential and it may very well help chart the right course for one of those seemingly intransigent youngsters.

Remember. Your mother's lines and creases were something you loved about her. They read home and safety. You're her now. Gather your life's experiences in a trundle of intention, and open your face - wrinkles notwithstanding - to the world

You have the future in your hands. And in your face.