Things Are Gonna Be Easier

It struck me this morning how brutally judgmental I can be toward my younger self.  Told some friends at lunch the other day that reading through my 30-year old journals was exhausting … as the old me was a sad and pathetic character.  They laughed at my melodrama – but HELL, I was being serious.  It would be better if I wrapped a mental arm around that hot young mess and told her everything was going to be okay.  Instead I’m shaking my head and rolling my eyes.  Harsh.

My journal review project is showing me that I fell down over and over AND OVER again.  Newsflash!  I will fall down again.  In those days my youthful optimism – or artless gullibility, propelled me forward.  Every face plant gave way to a new scheme from new age mysticism, religious devotion to psychological theories.

I was that child’s clown bop bag – always popping back up.  A rebound for every fall.  Luck, grace or providence spared me, as the extent of my recklessness; willful or unwitting, was epic.

Frankly I should celebrate that rookie.  Despite her recklessness, she was relentless.  Every reinvention; every time I affirmed the Emerson Rule; morphing myself as I absorbed new information, brought me here to today.

Will I look back twenty years from now at today’s hot grandma mess?  Will I applaud or jeer my discomfort at being the oldest dancer in the Rebel Fitness class?  Insecurity is a sneaky critter.  That committee between my ears gets squirrely seeing my shocking head of white hair in the mirror – or the iridescent ear plugs!  No, I don’t kick as high, or squat as low as the twenty-somethings!  I may feel awkward for a minute, but not for long.  I’ve learned a few things by now – and know that my confidence is just napping.

Things are definitely gonna be easier …

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

“… we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.” – Joan Didion