Brighter side: As time goes by

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An old woman holds up a camera as she photographs herself in the mirror
PHOTO: Tiago Muraro / Unsplash

By: Sofia Chassomeris, Opinions Editor

As a girl, I feared the merciless spectre of age. I was taught it would tarnish me — crow’s feet, smile lines, stiff limbs and fingers all blemishes in contribution to decay. 

But when I am watching friends’ faces stretch into expressions I’m slow to place, my own lips beaming before I know I’m happy; when I notice the creases beneath my mother’s eyes as she greets me, or until I’m opening a jar her arthritis gave up on; I realize this is how the body remembers. 

There are things I cherish now that I know I won’t have forever. I’ll lose them to time like a river cuts through stone, and I need not worry. I’m not losing, only changing. I’m curious to see how my face will remember each year, or how my own hands will remember the turning of every jar lid. I wonder if my hair will become more white, grey, or silver, and when I’ll change my mind about styling it next. 

To age is to live, and so I refuse to be disappointed by it.

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