When the Hands of Time Make You Cry

A dialogue about aging well

A dialogue about aging well

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

I gazed at my hand, draped palm-down on the book I was reading. It surprised me when the tears came.

What I saw was crepey skin gathered at the base of my thumb and soft wrinkles pooling around my knuckles.

What I saw was my mother’s hand, the shape, and texture of her nailbeds.

What I saw was the merging of my mother’s and father’s hands: her thumbs, his crooked pinkies.

What I saw was my grandmother’s hand, thinned skin over blue veins.

My nose stung and my eyes watered as I blinked back the tears.

What I saw was, again, my own hand.

It started an inner dialogue.

As often happens during moments of soft and deep reflection, I opened a dialogue with myself:

What are the tears? I asked.

Yeah, that surprised me too, I said.

Are you sad when look at your hand?

Hmm. No.

Afraid?

I looked again at my hand. My strong, long, lined, graceful, feminine, aging hand. I perused the corrugated map of lines on my palm and marveled at the deep life in there.

No, I answered.

So, what are the tears?

Acknowledgment? Yes, acknowledgment. Appreciation. Love.

All of that from looking at your hand?

So it would seem.

I’d recently had a milestone birthday, rolling into a new decade. I’d thought a lot about it and what it all means. In previous years, I’ve written birthday posts capturing nuggets from the previous year: how I’ve grown, and what I’ve let go.

I couldn’t seem to find my entry point, the doorway to the story, so I let it lie. I didn’t write it. No one would notice, right?

I’d also imagined how that birthday would be, in the French or Italian countryside. But, we were in a pandemic, so celebrating was different. In smaller celebrations, often online rather than in person.

And, simpler, which led to how that big birthday felt.

Simple, like turning the page.

The simplicity of my aging hand resting on the pages of the novel I’d been reading is what set me on the path of pondering. The metaphor was too hard to resist. It got me thinking about the pages in my own book of life, the new page I was about to enter, to write. As well as all the previous pages that had taken place beforehand (no pun intended).

My first thought was to explore the content of those previous chapters, release them, and let ’em go. So, I didn’t carry them with me into the next chapter.

Then, something made me stop. Some wisdom came through. It made me pause and listen. Don’t you love it when that happens?

It was a simple knowledge that all the previous pages must remain exactly as is. Not discarded or released. They’re all still in there, depicting, well, everything. Whatever happened in the past — the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful — is important. It doesn’t need to be trashed or forgotten. Or let go, to move forward.

They’re all a part of the story, this life story.

I heard a webinar leader one time say: “Don’t let your past be your prologue.”

And, I get that. But, my way of thinking is that it already is. Gotta agree with Shakespeare on this one.

“Whereof, what's past is prologue, what to come in yours and my discharge.” Shakespeare, The Tempest

The past is our prologue.

Simply, our past is what lies before, it is the prologue to the now, the current page in our life story.

Kind of necessary if you ask me.

But, here’s the most important part of the wisdom: Detach yourself from the attachment to the past.

Stay with me.

Don’t live in the prologue.

I think this is what the webinar leader referenced above was really trying to say.

The work — the good, juicy work — is to not stay stuck in the prologue. The work is to not attach to any part of our story.

The key to aging well is to acknowledge your prologue, be grateful for what your past has given you, give it the nod it’s due, and then plop yourself onto the present page, into your life, as it is right now.

“The past has no power over the present moment.” Eckhart Tolle

The gift of the detachment is that it doesn’t allow the previous chapters to dictate the current one. Some may say detaching is the same as letting go.

Okay, then this is about letting go of the attachment to the story, not letting go of the story. This idea of detachment clicked for me a bit deeper somehow. Sometimes you have to hear things differently in order for it to click.

Turning the page. Simply. To here and now.

I own my story, it doesn’t own me.

To recap, here are some things to keep in mind as you glance upon your own hands of time.

Start an inner dialogue when the tears and fears come.

Don’t live in your prologue. Honor it and —

Simply, turn the page to —

Live on the current page, in the now.

So, it was my own aging hand — holding all that life and wisdom in the prologue and the present — that was the entry point that opened the next page of my story.

So, what were the tears about? I ask.

Ah, I see now, I say. Tears of joy, for all that was, is, and will be.

Nice one.

Exactly.