I am 48

Today I am 48.

I keep almost saying 38, as in, How has the time gone by so quickly, and where did it go?

It strikes me now that 48 doesn’t feel all that different from 38.

Not in the ways you’d expect, at least.

At 28, I thought 48 was old, but now that I am here, I don’t feel old.

I just feel like me.

Me at 48.

Maybe I feel differently than I did at 18. After all, at 18, I barely felt at home in my body.

Now, she feels like home.

So much so that I notice when people and situations don’t feel right inside of it.

And when perimenopause began, I noticed that too, how suddenly the walls shifted around me.
How the body you finally make peace with can still surprise you.
The sudden unfamiliarity of my own moods.
The grief of realizing even my body keeps changing the rules.

Today I am 48.

I’ve been to places I’d never imagined.
I’ve become a person I never imagined.

Trying to grasp the girl I once was feels impossible now.
Like trying to hold onto smoke.

That’s how elusive memory is.

And probably about as trustworthy, too.

My memories feel full, but it’s only the landmark moments that reliably pull me back to them.

Graduation.
Laughter until I cried.
Marriage.
Building a life.
Divorce.
Heartbreak.
Sun-warmed skin and a sandy shore.
Watching friendships deepen, fracture, disappear.
The birth of my daughter.

The rest exists in fragments.
Perfume.
Songs.
Certain summers.
Versions of myself I can only access accidentally.

Sometimes I read my old journals or stories and think,
Oh. There she is. I remember that girl.

The way she settled for love.
The way she chased connection.
The way she accepted crumbs.
The way she ignored her own intuition.

I want to reach back and hold her sometimes.

Not because I miss being young.

But because I finally understand her
and all the ways she was taught to shapeshift and contort in this world just to feel acceptable.
A map handed to her so young she mistook it for destiny.

I’m starting to think that is what aging is all about:
becoming many different versions of yourself,
only to spend the rest of your life finding your way home again.

Today I am 48.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ♡