She woke up that morning in the usual way, it was 3:00 a.m. and the same thoughts and worries were swirling through her head. In the swirling was the long list of things she needed to get done today or minimally, this week, plus the things she wanted to get done, like her writing. She tossed and turned, wondering how she was going to get it all done but then came back to her usual conclusion, I’m still young and have plenty of time to get it all done, and she drifted off.
A short time later her alarm rings and she drags herself out of bed, walks through the house to the kitchen and fills up her coffee mug. She wonders if she should take the time to edit her “to do” list or just go with what it says for today and add to it as she goes along and again she thinks to herself, when will I ever get my writing done? As the anxiety begins to build in her chest she calms herself with the thought, at least I’m still healthy and young and I have years for all the things I want to do. It will all get done, in time.
In the silence of the early morning, with her husband and dogs still sleeping in the bedroom, she walks into the bathroom to take a shower. As she undresses, she starts to notice things about herself that she had never noticed before.
There were wrinkles and sagging skin where firm skin used to be; lines and age spots that had gone unnoticed before today with dark circles under her eyes. It took her breath away as she stared at the reflection that seemed to betray her. She gasped and put her hand over her mouth so as not to wake her husband, and the hand she saw on her face now resembled the hand of her mother. She suddenly saw herself through the eyes of her younger self and there stood an old woman looking back at her.
She didn’t recognize this woman as the one she talked to every day, the one with dreams and plans, the one with her entire life still ahead of her, the one she still wanted to be and needed to be.
She leaned back on the wall and continued to stare at this woman in the mirror and she wondered where this woman had come from and where all the years had gone? She didn’t know if she should cry, scream, or just accept this new reality, but in stunned silence she did nothing but continue to stare at her new reflection.
She felt her body begin to crumble and she sank to the floor with tears streaming down her face. In an attempt at comfort, she wrapped her arms around herself and cried. Accepting the new reality that she did not indeed have an entire life left to do all that she wanted to do, was not on her list of things to do for today, and anger hit her like a brick and she picked herself up off the floor and once again faced the woman looking back at her in the mirror.
As she stared into those red and tired eyes, the anger began to soften as she recognized the soft, loving eyes looking back at her. As she looked at her body again and all the scars and wrinkles, she realized they were all symbols of her memories, some good and some bad, but all with a memory attached to them and the evidence of a life lived.
She smiled a sympathetic smile back at her reflection and knew she would eventually accept this new reality, but it wasn’t going to be today. Today she was scared and overwhelmed and needed time to process all she had discovered, but she also felt the flicker of a new determination building inside herself, the determination she would need to move past the fear and into this next phase of her life.