Dear Age

Dear Age,

I used to be afraid of you.

Terrified, actually.

When I was little, I thought you were something that happened to other people. Old people.

People with soft wrinkled hands and slower steps.
People who kept peppermints in their purses and photographs in albums.
People who said things like,
“back in my day”

I never imagined I would become one of them.

When you are young, forty sounds ancient.

Fifty sounds impossible.

And anything beyond that feels like a place on a map you’ll never have to visit.

I thought you would take everything from me.

My youth.
My beauty.
My energy.
My relevance.

I thought I would wake up one morning and realize that somewhere in the night, I had become old.

So I watched you carefully.

Counted birthdays.

Inspected mirrors for cracks in skin.

Studied every new line like it was evidence that you were getting closer.

But somewhere along the way, Age…

you stopped scaring me.

Maybe because life scared me more.


I learned that there are things much scarier than getting older.

Like losing someone before you are ready.

Like watching a chapter end when you were still reading the page.

Like learning that some goodbyes don’t come with warnings.

And suddenly another birthday didn’t feel like something being taken from me.

It felt like something I had been given.

Another year.

Another morning.

Another chance at the breakfast table with my mother.

And now, as I make my way toward my forties, everything feels slower.

Not empty.

Not boring.

Just… slower and I like it here.

I notice things now.

The quiet of my house before everyone wakes up.

The way sunlight finds its way through a window.

A conversation that doesn’t need to go anywhere.

A song I’ve heard a hundred times suddenly sounding different because I’m different.

I don’t need every moment to be exciting anymore.

I’ve learned that a quiet life can still be a full one.

Maybe that’s what you’ve been trying to teach me all along.

You weren’t coming to steal my life.

You were teaching me how to notice it.

And yes, I know where this road leads eventually.

For some reason, that doesn’t scare me the way it used to either.


I’ve loved people who have already gone ahead of me.

So when my time comes—and I hope you’ve still got plenty of birthdays stored away for me—I don’t want to leave this life kicking and screaming because I was too afraid to accept that every beautiful thing has a final page.

I want to leave with grace.

I want to look back at this life and say,

Thank you.

Thank you for the people.

Thank you for the laughter.

Thank you for the heartbreak that taught me how deeply I could love.

Thank you for the ordinary Thursdays I didn’t realize someday i’d miss.

Thank you for letting me grow old enough to understand things my younger self couldn’t.

And when whatever comes next opens its door,

I’ll walk through it.


I don’t know what’s on the other side.

I don’t know what the next chapter looks like.

But I trust that I won’t be the first one there.

There are people I love who have already made that journey.

And I like to believe they’ll be waiting.

Maybe smiling.

Maybe saying,

“What took you so long?”


So, Age…

I’m not running from you anymore.

Come sit with me.

Stay awhile.

Bring the wrinkles.

Bring the gray hairs.

Bring the slower mornings and the stories that begin with,

“Back in my day…”

Give me the privilege of becoming the man I once thought was old.

Because I understand you now.

You were never the enemy.

You were proof.

Proof that I stayed.

Proof that I lived.

Proof that somehow, through everything,

I made it here.

With love,

Patiently waiting