when anne carson said what is mortality after all but divine doubt flashing over us?
...i felt that
i turn 34 on monday. it’s strange to me that i’m turning 34 because i don’t feel 34 years old. i don’t really know what turning 34 is supposed to feel like but i know it isn’t this. when i look in the mirror, i don’t see someone who is approaching their mid thirties. i don’t see someone who is one year away from 35 which is 5 years from turning 40 years old. this is how my mind thinks: i am always on my way to somewhere, i am always parsing my time.
things that make me feel my age:
seeing the grey hairs sprout from my center hairline, silvery and stark against the artificial red my hair is dyed.
and even more so: the soft silver hairs that grow sporadically around the curve of my ear. it’s the spot where i notice my mom’s grey hair when she hasn’t dyed her hair in awhile. sometimes, when i look at her, it’s the only telling sign that she is getting older. it’s an insignificant yet vulnerable spot that makes me aware of how in some ways, we are closer in age than not.
seeing my engagement ring sitting on the thrifted antique bookshelf in the center of my apartment, collecting dust but glittering when the late afternoon sun pours through the windows. it is an insignificant object that now holds a whole parallel life in it’s facets.