gramola2three
Observation and Perception
3:366-1 2011
January 3, 2011
My 60th Year
I woke up this morning thinking about observation and perception and the similarity and difference between my internal perceptions of myself and what I outwardly observe about myself. Of course this all has to do with my obsession this year with aging. I realize that it’s a cliché to say that I don’t feel I’m any different today than I was twenty or thirty or forty years ago. But when I look in the mirror I don’t see the person I see in my head and I wonder what happened to that tight faced young woman and I think I want to be her again. But really I wouldn’t. I would not want to have twenty or thirty or forty years of experiences have had no impact on the way I think. Or the way I love. Or the way I dream. The twenty year old me wasn’t yet a mother or a grandmother and did not, could not, know how to give true unconditional love; the thirty year old me thought that career success was what I needed to be accepted and the forty and fifty year old me, well suffice it to say a whole lot happened in those two decades. So here I am on the cusp of sixty and I may mourn that I see a saggy face and thinner hair when I look in the mirror but the reality of it is that I like myself more now. Oh, there are still things I would like to change: sometimes I’m too selfish; sometimes I snap and growl and stomp; sometimes I’m too opinionated. But most of the time I’m just OK and that’s OK with me.
Observation and Perception
3:366-1 2011
January 3, 2011
My 60th Year
I woke up this morning thinking about observation and perception and the similarity and difference between my internal perceptions of myself and what I outwardly observe about myself. Of course this all has to do with my obsession this year with aging. I realize that it’s a cliché to say that I don’t feel I’m any different today than I was twenty or thirty or forty years ago. But when I look in the mirror I don’t see the person I see in my head and I wonder what happened to that tight faced young woman and I think I want to be her again. But really I wouldn’t. I would not want to have twenty or thirty or forty years of experiences have had no impact on the way I think. Or the way I love. Or the way I dream. The twenty year old me wasn’t yet a mother or a grandmother and did not, could not, know how to give true unconditional love; the thirty year old me thought that career success was what I needed to be accepted and the forty and fifty year old me, well suffice it to say a whole lot happened in those two decades. So here I am on the cusp of sixty and I may mourn that I see a saggy face and thinner hair when I look in the mirror but the reality of it is that I like myself more now. Oh, there are still things I would like to change: sometimes I’m too selfish; sometimes I snap and growl and stomp; sometimes I’m too opinionated. But most of the time I’m just OK and that’s OK with me.