Residual Self-Image

Looking in the mirror just now turned into a semi-religious experience. I know the guy looking back at me was not my dad, but it wasn’t me either. It’s not that I don’t recognize my own face-I do! It’s more like it just doesn’t seem to be me anymore, at least not the way I think of myself. As I apply the shaving cream to my face and then perform the ritual of shaving, which I’ve done faithfully for over forty years, everything seems familiar, so familiar that I almost never cut myself anymore. As I finish up my shave and rinse my face, taking a sideways glance at the face in the mirror, the images of all the days and places seem to offer themselves up right in front of me. It was a surreal moment of brilliant insight that left me reeling from seeing my life flash before my eyes. Where does the time of our life go to? It seems to slip by so slowly at first and then one day you wake up and you’re on a roller coaster hellbent on jumping the tracks. I remember all the times, all the days spent working, fixing things around the house, going on vacation, family birthdays, baptisms and funerals. I remember all the holiday scenes and Christmas presents and the family and friends that are no longer with us and all the new babies in the family. Maybe it’s a trick of memory to suppose that everything in the past happened in its own time, unfolding without hurry or bother, as it was always intended. It could be that things have changed in the world so much that now we don’t have time to cram anything into our already crowded schedules. I mean, when I go on vacation now, I need four power cords to charge my two cellphones, Bluetooth, and Nook! What’s up with that? Checking in with myself at age sixty is both rewarding and perplexing. As I grow older life itself seems to deliver up gifts I never imagined, never could have received in my youth; patience, perspective, and a slower pace more amenable to actually getting something meaningful accomplished each day. It is finally possible to begin to experience a sense of rhythm in life. Some of the unintended consequences include all the medications, doctor visits, and the stuff that comes with it. There is also something else that showed up in my life when I turned sixty: the need to reinvent myself or rediscover who I really am! Sometime in the past year, a new image of me has come into focus: it is a faded residual image from my youth of me actually conquering life or something like that. Anyway, this morning, the image in the mirror realized that I had almost accomplished so many things in my life. I almost completed my educational goals. I almost helped my parents in their old age. I almost succeeded in business. I almost went bankrupt. I almost became a pastor. I almost went to Europe. I almost became a writer. I almost became a ballet dancer. I almost lived my life. I don’t know how much time I have left to live, but I’ve learned to be fully grateful for each breath of air I breathe, for each bird song I hear at sunrise, and to watch the sun go down and just sit on the patio basking in that indirect sunlight time of day we call twilight. Having found my authentic self, time no longer seems to matter, as each day unfolds on its own, in its own time and me along with it.