32 and 44...

Everyone on the Facebooks is doing that thing where you post your oldest profile pic and your newest and there's supposed to be some weird slightly ageist skirting comparison of how you looked then versus how you look now. Nevertheless, offensive language aside, I was curious and did it and it got me thinking about time.  I don't think I look different physically all that much..the first profile pic I actually used my face for was already a few years old when I posted it, from around 2006-2007 (I didn't have a smart phone until 2014, so selfies weren't my thing and I just didn't have many photos I liked. )

So what you have is a girl (she feels like a girl) of around 32, probably so drawn looking because of her the demands of working full time and tackling an MFA program I was never having much of a good time in.  Add in a disastrous relationship with someone it took years to untangle from (someone who was married and a supreme sociopath / compulsive liar).  The press was a couple years old and gaining steam and I was on the verge of my first book coming out, but just as adrift in this thing called poetry as I ever am.  If you'd asked me then, I would have told you I was happy, but comparatively, I look back and think I was foolish to think so.

Fast forward to a couple years back when my current pic was taken.  Not only am I a few pounds lighter and a few shades blonder, but, at least then, I was pretty happy and I believe that happiness more (granted this was pre-Trump era and before my mom got sick--both things that have made the past two years a bit rougher. )   I've written several more books, moved into the studio and finished the MFA. Better clothes, better relationship, a few more cats. All in all, things have worked out pretty well for that 32 year old now on the crest of 45.  I don't mind aging in itself (it's more the weird disconnect between how you feel on the inside vs.  what is happening on the outside.  I worry I will forever feel like I'm 25 and be walking around in an 80 year old's body (if I'm lucky).