The new year is here. We stayed home, ate pizza, and listened to music. After that, we watched British people baking. We ushered in the year with shots of liquor and chocolate. That was awesome.
Aside from my birthday goals, I think the main thing I want to focus on is the beauty of aging. Not just mine, but everyone's. Everything's. I want to enjoy the patina. I want to love flaking paint. I want to savor the scars that stand as proof of our survival. I want to love the dusty corners and the waterstained edges. After all, history is so much more interesting than newness.
As I've mentioned before, there are two paths to finding beauty. One is to admire how close something can come to a template or a standard. It is loving the symmetry of a face or the definition of a well-toned body. There is an art to attempting to reach this standard and I do admire that art.
There is also beauty to be found in the ways that things (and people) drift away from that conforming standard, the ways in which they are uniquely themselves. It's why I always like to watch my scars change, look at how freckles and stretch marks alter my skin. It's the lines that create our fingerprints, the patterns of hair that cover us, the crookedness of toes or teeth or smiles. These are the things I want to watch this year. These are the things I want to savor.
Happy 2017. May the year bring you joy, security, happiness, and laughter.
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