The body of a 44-year-old just one day removed from 45 is different from the one I had at half this age, but I’ve been taking a little better care of it now than I was back then. That’s what happens when you get older. Rather than fight it, it’s best to embrace those changes, leaning into ways to live a little healthier.
After returning from a pre-birthday dinner, I prepared to take a quick shower in the hazy nether region before another birthday. Forty-five years ago tonight I did not exist. In the way that birthdays sometimes bring about a moment of melancholy, I wondered briefly if there would have been any discernible difference in the world if I hadn’t entered it the next day. Even the most influential among us have very little say or sway in changing the world in sweeping ways; the best we can do is nudge and cajole in small ways the shifting trajectory of the universe.
Looking back to when I stood in the same bathroom twenty five years ago, I wondered at how much had truly changed. I didn’t feel all that different on the inside, but how unrecognizable the outside world had become from just five or ten years ago. Upon closer examination, I suppose I had changed quite a bit too, and not just on the outside…
