Growing Older in Front of Your Children

My boys,

You are watching me get older.

I know because occasionally one of you is kind enough to announce it.

You notice the gray hair before I do.

You ask what happened to my forehead.

You inspect some new line on my face as though it requires medical attention.

Children are excellent for vanity.

I am thirty-five as I write this.

That is not old.

But it is old enough to know I am no longer twenty.

I feel that in small ways.

I need more sleep than I used to admit.

If I train hard, recovery matters.

Something can hurt in the morning for no apparent reason.

I cannot eat badly for three days and expect my body to negotiate the consequences the way it once did.

I stretch now.

Voluntarily.

That alone should concern you.

There are other changes.

I think before saying yes more often.

I leave some places earlier.

I am less interested in proving I can endure something simply because I can.

I have begun understanding that energy is a resource.

So is attention.

So is time.

Especially time.

When I was younger, strength meant more.

More weight.

More hours.

More risk.

More work.

More tolerance for discomfort.

More proof.

I wanted to know how far I could push myself.

There was value in that.

A young man should discover what he can carry.

But eventually strength has to mature with the man carrying it.

Now strength sometimes means stopping.

It means going to sleep.

It means saying no to something I could do because doing it would take me away from something I should do.

It means taking care of my body instead of treating it like equipment I can replace.

It means admitting that I am tired.

It means asking for help before something breaks.

That has been harder for me than lifting anything heavy.

You will see my body change.

If God gives me enough years, you will see much more than gray hair.

You may see me become slower.

You may eventually walk faster than I do.

You may carry something I once carried for you.

You may have to repeat yourself because I didn't hear you.

You may watch my hands become less steady.

I hope I have enough humility by then not to pretend otherwise.

I don't want to teach you that aging is something shameful that a man should conceal.

I want you to see me care for every version of myself God allows me to become.

The strong one.

The tired one.

The gray one.

The slower one.

The one who still thinks he can do something and discovers halfway through that he probably should have asked one of you.

There is dignity in accepting the season without surrendering to it.

I will still train.

I will still work.

I will still learn.

I will still try to remain capable.

Aging honestly does not mean neglecting yourself.

Quite the opposite.

The older I become, the more responsibility I have to care for the body carrying me through this life.

But I will not worship youth.

I have already been young.

It was beautiful.

It was also foolish.

I knew less.

Listened less.

Hurried more.

Mistook urgency for importance.

Thought being needed everywhere meant I mattered everywhere.

I would like to keep some things from that young man.

His curiosity.

His appetite for possibility.

His willingness to try.

His refusal to believe something was impossible simply because nobody around him had done it.

But I can leave some things behind too.

The ego.

The needless proving.

The belief that exhaustion is evidence of importance.

The fear of appearing weak.

You boys need to see that.

Because you are not only learning from what I tell you about becoming men.

You are watching how I become one.

Still.

Fatherhood did not freeze me at the age you first knew me.

I am growing in front of you too.

One day, if God gives us the years, you will be grown men and I will be an old one.

I hope you don't look at me and see a man desperately trying to remain thirty-five.

I hope you see someone who learned how to be strong at twenty.

Strong differently at thirty-five.

Differently again at fifty.

Seventy.

However many years God writes for me.

And when the day comes that one of you reaches for the heavy thing before I do...

I hope I have the wisdom to let you carry it.

I carried you first.

That was never supposed to mean I carry everything forever.

I love you.

— Baba

Question:

Are you trying to preserve the person you were, or becoming strong enough to accept the person your next season requires?

Moral:

Strength should mature as we do. Aging with dignity means caring for the body, releasing the need to prove what no longer needs proving, and allowing the people we once carried to become strong enough to carry something for us.

This story reflects real experiences and philosophies behind Backyard Brew. It is shared to inspire perspective and intention.

Author: R. Solace