I turned 38 a week ago. Exactly twenty years have passed since I was eighteen.
People often tell you that time goes by quickly. And while it does in some ways, I can’t say that it has been like that for me. The years have felt as they should. I remember them. I lived them.
Maybe that’s because I’ve always tried to be present and to appreciate each day with my whole being, regardless of what it brings.
Because one thing I know for certain is this: Life is short. And we’ll never get the present moment back.
When I was a teenager, thirty sounded *so old*. By my twenties, everyone seemed to agree that your thirties were somehow better. So when I arrived there, I welcomed them. I was still close enough to my twenties didn’t feel all that different—just me with a little more confidence, a little more peace, and a better understanding of who I was.
What no one really prepares you for is aging.
Not because growing older is bad. Because it asks you to let go.
Suddenly, your face changes. Your features become those of a woman rather than a girl. The first fine lines begin to appear. One grey hair becomes several. People start calling you *Madame*, a title that feels both respectful and bittersweet.
Your body starts changing too. The skin softens. New curves appear. Muscles mature. Things you once took for granted suddenly change.
After years of training, sport, and discipline, I watched my body settle into itself. The strength I’d earned had stayed with me. My muscles carried the memory of all the work I had put into them.
Other changes are harder.
As women, we eventually become aware that fertility isn’t endless, all while knowing what’s to come in our forties and fifties. After spending most of my life frustrated by my monthly cycle—the inconvenience, the discomfort, the interruption—it’s surprisingly emotional to realize that one day it will simply… stop.
Something that felt so permanent was never permanent at all. Something that was part of me – for the good and the bad – I never fully grasped would one day come to an end.
If you haven’t yet had children, that realization can have quite a chokehold. This very biological change, the fertility of a woman and the vibrant youthfulness that comes with it, fades. The first of very many that come with age.
Time waits for no one.
The older I get, the more I realize just how true it is.
We can exercise. Eat well. Take care of ourselves. We can soften some of the effects of time.
But we cannot stop it.
And one day you realize that the version of yourself you’ve always known—the unmistakably young version—is no longer the person looking back in the mirror.
There’s a grief in that. Not because getting older is tragic. Because becoming someone new always requires saying goodbye to someone you once were.
Two things can be true at once. Grateful for another year while grieving the passing of the last. Celebrate growing older while mourning your youth. Embrace what’s ahead while missing what was.
I’ve also realized that aging isn’t just something that happens to our bodies.
It happens to our dreams.
When you’re twenty, life feels almost limitless. Every possibility seems open. You want to master everything, become everything, experience everything.
I’ve always been that way. I love learning. I love starting over. I love becoming a beginner and chasing mastery.
After years away from the slopes, I learned to really snowboard in my mid-thirties. I fell more times than I could count before eventually riding double blacks, glades, and terrain parks.
I loved every minute of it.
But somewhere along the way I realized something difficult.
I probably won’t become the rider I once imagined.
Not because I couldn’t.
Because life asks different things of me now.
The older we become, the more responsibilities we carry. Careers. Families. Financial obligations. The people who depend on us.
At some point, we stop asking, *Can I? *We begin asking, *Should I?*
Some dreams don’t disappear because we fail. They make room for other priorities.
I’ve always thought of myself as someone who welcomes change.
In many ways, I’ve built my life around it.
Some of the happiest chapters of my life began because I decided to change something. I chose a different path. I learned a new skill. I challenged an old belief. I always thought that made me someone comfortable with change.
But this year I realized something I hadn’t fully understood.
I don’t just welcome change.
I welcome the changes I choose.
The harder lesson is accepting the ones I don’t.
The ones that arrive without invitation or permission. The ones brought by time, biology, circumstance, and loss. The ones that ask nothing of me except acceptance.
For someone who has always believed growth comes from embracing change, I realized that belief has to extend beyond the changes I create for myself. It also has to include the changes life creates for me.
Maybe that’s what acceptance really is. Not resisting every ending, but meeting it with grace.
And choosing to move forward—with hope, with purpose, and the determination to keep building a life worth living.
Perhaps that’s another form of growing up.
Then there are the people we love.
As we age, so do they. For me, that became painfully real when I lost my grandfather. My jiddo. My home. The end of an era never rang truer.
You begin watching your parents grow older too. The people who once seemed invincible begin carrying aches, surgeries, medications, and limitations of their own.
Time touches everyone. No exceptions.
Maybe that’s why I’ve become even more intentional about living.
Not because I fear getting older.
But because I finally understand what every passing year costs.
Every birthday is both a gift and a goodbye.
And perhaps that’s simply the price of a life well lived.
So my answer to that is simple, even if it isn’t easy.
To live each day even more intentionally than the one before. To embrace every experience—the good ones and the difficult ones—with wonder. To never lose my sense of awe for this extraordinary privilege of being alive.
Because one day, all of it will become a memory.
I can’t stop time.
But I can choose how I live the time I’m given.
And if we’re fortunate enough to keep growing older, maybe that’s the greatest privilege life has to offer.
Don’t cry because it’s over.
Smile because it happened.