The Friendly Mirror

A Classic from Older, Wiser, Fiercer

A personal note of welcome to the additional thousand old souls who found their way here this week to our new home at Substack. The Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group community is now closing in on 2000 strong and growing! If you’d like to learn more about what we’re all about, click HERE. And meanwhile, here’s a favorite blog I know will help make you feel right at home.        

Fiercely Yours, Carol Orsborn

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I woke up this morning and there was an old woman staring back at me. So I pulled out every jar, stick and tube and then there she was: an old woman wearing make-up. I rummaged through the closet and found an old favorite hat to put on.  Ah hah! I said when I had positioned it at a jaunty angle. And now there was an old woman wearing a great hat.

Over the next few minutes, there was much rummaging and adjusting and soon there was an old woman wearing sunglasses and a signature scarf.  But with all the layers and manipulations, nothing had altered the truth of the matter.  I am a woman. I am old. And I am out of tricks.

But I am not out of choices. I could choose to continue to fret, regretting the loss of my youthful looks.  Or I could choose to think of myself as beautiful for my age.  Or—and this one was new—I could take it all in, have a good laugh, then get on with it.

The minute this third option crossed my mind, my face changed completely. I no longer searched for a particular blush of beauty in the reflection, but rather, I saw everything I had ever been, could or will be:  the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, everything in between and something beyond it all and breathing in every single bit of it, I was taken aback.  This face was not only hard-worn but hard-won, so in less time than it had taken to put it all on, most of it came right off and the bit that remained was just right.

I turned away from the suddenly friendly mirror, no longer fighting growing old—nor accepting it.  I was just me again. And isn’t that what I’d been searching for all along?

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