Of aging and affirmations

Steph and Amy: If you're reading this, we should have taken a photo together. I really need it for this post!

I enjoyed an affirmation of sorts this weekend.

Sitting in a restaurant Saturday morning with friends from high school in town for the University of Colorado’s Homecoming weekend, menus were placed before us and promptly we all pulled from our purses three sets of reading glasses.

I sighed and may have even said: ‘Thank, God.’

Seeing my friends reaching for their own glasses to read the menu’s fine print relieved me more than I knew.

In the past year, the purchases I’ve made to accommodate my aging have increased and come in the form of a variety of as-seen-on-Instagram products, including:

• ‘Press Restart Gentle Retinol Serum.’

• ‘Stroke of Brilliance Brightening Serum.’

• ‘WonderGlow bovine colostrum, hyaluronic acid, collagen’ vitamins.

• An illuminated dermaplaner I like to consider my lightsaber against aging.

• Several pairs of the aforementioned reading glasses that all invariably make me look like The Unabomber, as The Weed tells me.

• And, a nose hair trimmer…I swore I would only reveal to my closest confidants this trimmer purchase. However, for accountability, it seems important to mention it here. Let us never speak of it again!! 

Back to brunching with my friends and our glasses.

Steph flew in from Virginia to celebrate Homecoming weekend with her sorority sisters while Amy was in town from Denver to catch up with Steph and me and visit her collegiate stomping grounds.

We spent a few hours reminiscing about our high school days, detailing how we met our husbands, news of our careers, and sharing family updates about children and parents.

Throughout our time together, I was struck by how reassuring it was for me to hear these women I’ve known for decades talk about having similar doubts and concerns in life.

We talked about the challenges that come with a marriage. The span of time spent with one person. The physical and emotional changes that happen in a relationship can be daunting, we agreed.

Somehow one of the most meaningful parts of our visit together, for me, was talking about our classmates who have died far too young.

Steph and Amy knew my best friend in high school. Most people at Greeley Central knew her.

Apart from being my best friend, she was a bride’s maid at my wedding and someone I turned to for years to share laughs, life updates, and rants.

She died in July. She was just 53 years old.

By my side on my wedding day, she also was by my side the day of my mastectomy.

I hate that she will never get to experience brunches with our friends where we put on our reading glasses and dish about anything and everything like I enjoyed this weekend.

As I get older, I’m starting to understand it’s not the bovine colostrum vitamins that will make me feel better or the reading glasses that will help me see things differently.

It’s these relationships that feed the soul. The Saturday morning chats in a boisterous restaurant where we still can hear the stories of our past come to life.

I hope to never take these moments for granted because I know how fortunate I am to be able to enjoy them.