I Grieved The Loss Of My Younger Self. Then I Realised Something I Never Could Have At 25

The strangest thing about getting older is that nobody warns you how young you will continue to feel. The years accumulate around you long before they settle inside you.

People talk endlessly about ageing. They warn us about wrinkles, grey hair, reading glasses, aching joints and slowing metabolisms. They tell us about menopause, hot flashes and changing bodies.

We spend our entire lives hearing about the physical realities of growing older, yet very few people discuss the emotional contradiction that accompanies it.

The woman inside never seems to age at the same rate as the woman outside.

I know how old I am. I know how many years have passed and how many experiences have shaped me into the person I am today. I have celebrated birthdays, weathered heartbreaks, built a career, raised a family, lost people I loved and accumulated enough memories to fill several lifetimes. Intellectually, I understand the passage of time.

Yet somewhere inside me still lives the woman I was at 25. She appears unexpectedly. She is there when a favourite song comes on the radio and instantly transports me back decades. She is there when I laugh with old friends until tears run down my face. She is there when I make plans for the future and feel excited about what comes next. She is there when I walk into a room, still believing I look much the way I always have.

Then I catch my reflection.

Sometimes it happens in a store window. Other times, it’s a candid photo.

More often than I’d like, it’s under the unforgiving lighting of a dressing room. In those moments, I experience a brief but unmistakable disconnect between who I feel myself to be and the woman staring back at me.

The face is familiar, yet different.

The skin is softer. The lines around my eyes linger long after the smile has faded. Age spots have appeared where there once was smooth skin. Gravity, indifferent to my opinions on the matter, has quietly gone about its work.

The shock is not that these changes have occurred.

The shock is that they happened while I was busy living.

Perhaps that is why ageing can feel so disorienting. We experience ourselves as memories, relationships, dreams and emotions. We experience ourselves from the inside out.

The body gradually changes while the self feels remarkably consistent. Then, one day, the mirror reflects the passage of time more honestly than our minds do. For women, this........

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