the SUM of forty

My life is a SUM of all that I ever was and am. The child that I was decades ago, is still a part of me. 

The transient experiences that I had back then, long forgotten now, will remain in the deepest recesses of my heart, to be summoned at some conscious or unconscious moment or maybe at that point when my spirit hovers over my body, in death… all of these consciousness will appear  before me  in   flashbacks…

I am not    the woman that  I was  at eighteen, but  at forty, the person that I was at eighteen remains a part of me; as the me that I was at  twenty two, twenty four, thirty, thirty one; and  the girl of seven and fourteen.  All of me in my entirety becomes my very core and substance.    Every single person I have known, the experience of every feeling, emotion and passion that ever was and is … is me.

Seven -- my first   birthday party.     I sang a sad love song without knowing what it meant.  Back then, till now,  I have always been a  drama queen.

Fifteen --  an age of muted rebellion. Maria Clara risen from the grave I was not.

Eighteen --  a period of daydreams and moonshine that extended into my twenties;   forging close female ties … much shrieking and sighing and fascination over men; engrossed in a world of  books and ideas, words, poetry…

Twenty and  out of college. World, here I come.

Twenty two --  love  descended on me.

Twenty four --  my heart was wounded so deeply I wear the scars.

And yet again at twenty four I became a vagabond, without a home.

Twenty six --  stuck in a job rut that won’t let me bloom.

Twenty seven --  testing the waters, laughing again.

Thirty --  I found a husband.  World, what will you have to do with me? For he has conquered me.

Thirty one --  I bore a son.  A light that can never be snuffed out now burns  within me.

Motherhood is a wondrous thing; perhaps better than falling in love. The  thirties was a decade  steeped  in  the earnest purpose of  building a home, warmed by the hearth of familial love.   My world was my son and my husband in a circle that never ends.

Forty -- finding my substance. I have, at last, found me.

What is beauty?  It is waxing wise. It is seeing the world not with the stark idealism of youth but the mellow wisdom of gray hair and wrinkles,  sagging skin and lined eyes.

I have loved and known its ecstasies, felt its bitter pains, sucked the wantonness and galls of the flesh, felt the blinding flash of vengeance’s fire … resentments, displeasures, betrayals, sadnesses beyond measure, and of  joys, the same.

I understand the  significance of  roots and sipped the succulent wine of friendship. I have been in poverty, and want, and I have seen better days. Close to God, far from God, and in between.

Forgiveness is a dear thing: freely given and freely received, it can set one free.

I have known the glorious agonies of labor.  I have borne a son out of my pain. Becoming a mother has marked me forever.

At  forty, I have summed up my life : all that I ever was and am, all the loves, hopes, dreams and passions of my life, be it little, or be it not, is me. All the lives that have entwined themselves into mine, all that they have been and meant to me, is now me.

Forty is the sum of everything and every one that has touched me.

This is the sum of me.