Wrinkles

Nature's wrinkles? (Singapore Botanic Gardens)

My 74th birthday is imminent. My merciless mirror tells me this ending year brought a few more wrinkles to the aging skin of my aging face. In fact, more proofs of this unavoidable process can be found all over my body. I don’t look at the latter very often, and I don’t need to. I know they are there because gravity and my clothes remind me.

But my wrinkles, I see every day, reflected back to me every time I brush my teeth or my hair. I don’t mind them, though, because they are my badge of honor. They bear witness to all I have felt and done, suffered and enjoyed, learned and accomplished; to how hard I have played, and how hard I have cried.

Yes, the creases etched into my forehead by pain, worries, sadness, anxiety, grief, disappointment and fear, are evidence of the toll the passing years have inflicted onto my skin. But they are also proof of a lifetime of much laughter and many smiles. Those wrinkles can even be attractive when they reflect the wisdom, courage, patience, compassion, joy and humor I’ve experienced along  life’s journey.

They speak of the wisdom required to look at half-full glasses rather than half-empty ones; express the blessed sense of humor which can see the funny side of most situations; represent the courage to survive the daily scrapes and cuts with as few scars as possible, and demonstrate the self-acceptance required to not take oneself too seriously. 

I value my wrinkles, I respect them, I earned them and I deserve them. I am even proud of them. Amen.