The true self does not die

When I was young I thought people over forty were ancient. I thought their lives were over. Now I am nearly fifty and I hear young people uttering the same words I did when I was their age. I see them looking at me with the same look I did when I saw older people. Some with awe. Others with respect. Others trying to figure out whether they should call me ma'am.

I once asked my mother-in-law, who is now eighty five, if she felt different because she was aging. I asked if her thoughts had changed. I asked if she thought of herself as an old woman or if she still thought of herself as a young girl?

She thought about it for a while. Quiet. Reflective. I worried I had offended her.  Then she said very slowly that although she had physically changed, she felt she was pretty much the same person on the inside she has always been. She laughed then and said she only realises she is old when she can’t do all the things she used to because of her physical limitations. But her mind is the same as it has always been.

I have been thinking about aging and death for a while. Particularly now that I am approaching my half century on this earth. And with the sudden deaths of so many high profile people as well as people I went to school with. Then last night I came across a quote that resonated with me on a very deep and personal level.

Marianne Williamson said, “The true self does not age, nor does it die. The body is simply a suit of clothes we wear, it ages but we do not, and it dies but we do not.”

After reading this quote so many thoughts became crystal clear to me. Aging is a natural process that none of us can stop except when we die, which is also a natural process that we cannot defy. Aging and death are the natural orders of life. Our physical beings are merely reflections of the sort of lives we are living on this physical plane called Earth

I thought about my mother-in-law’s words of wisdom and here I am some twenty years later, twenty years older, yet my essence self is still the same. I am still the girl who was born 48 years ago. With the same nature, purpose and presence of mind. My experiences have grown and shaped me but at the core I am still the same person I was born to be. My body has changed somewhat over the years. My face has matured. But inside I am exactly the same as I was when I was born. When I was ten. When I was twenty. When I was thirty. When I was forty. And still I am as I was as I am as I will be.

So why do we spend so much time trying to cheat our age? Hide from the physical limitations of our bodies when all they represent are the clothes our souls wear. Aging and death are natural parts of our journeys. And rather than fighting them, we ought to embrace them, love them, go with them because they are who we were. Who we are. And who we will be. Infinite. Perpetual beings.