It is a few minutes before 1 am and I can't sleep. The truth is that I haven't even tried to close my eyes. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be at the computer, but the great brain has decided that I am 20 years younger than I am.
Twenty years ago you never would have found me in bed before 1:30. I was and still am a night owl. I love this time of night, there is something so very relaxing about it. Ok, the rules of the blog dictate honesty so I have to confess that twenty years ago I probably wasn't studying, at least not at this time of night.
Into the bathroom I head to brush my teeth and prepare myself for bed. I look in the mirror and stare at the face looking back at me. It sounds ridiculous, but sometimes I don't recognize that guy. I keep looking for that 19 or 20 year old I used to be.
The guy with the flat top haircut, washboard abs, hazel eyes and the metabolism that let me eat anything and not gain weight. Really, he is there. I know that one of these days I am going to look in the mirror and see him looking back at me.
'Cuz that 39 year-old with the dark circles beneath his eyes can't really be me. When did those lines in my forehead appear. The five o'clock shadow is consistent, had that for years and years now.
The abs aren't quite what they used to be. Things are a bit softer down that way than they used to be. If I flex I can still see the cuts in my stomach, but that doesn't hide the reality of good eating.
Sometimes I look at that guy in the mirror and wonder who he is. I just don't recognize him. And then I consider what would happen if I really did see that guy from the 80s looking back at me. The t-shirt and Levis wouldn't be much different from now, but the look in his eyes would. Would I really recognize him. Would I really want to be that guy again.
Sometimes I wonder.
6 comments:
If you do find the guy with washboard abs and hazel eyes.... send him my way. ;)
;)
I wonder too--all the time...
I've been doing this a lot myself lately. Each time there seems to be more to see and ponder on. Some of it is good. Some of it makes me sad. Some of it scares the bejeezus out of me. The trick to surviving one of these "ordeals" seems to be in the ability to see past the stuff on the outside and concentrate on the old (read: younger,) real me, who still dwells alive and well in my soul. A small consolation sometimes, but a consolation, nonetheless...
I don't mind the woman I see in the mirror, but I hate the one I see in photographs. I have no idea who she is.
Wink,
Consolation is consolation. Gotta get it where you can.
Alice,
Hah, I hear you.
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