This life is so fleeting. I’m so immensely grateful for the beautiful people and places that have been put in my path. The people are few, and this year, fewer yet. So many have gone on ahead. The places are many. And will be many more until I go on ahead.

I’ve wasted so much time trying to become what I thought I should be. What “people” wanted. It’s taken me almost a half century to realize that no amount of becoming will ever be enough for most people. And most people don’t matter.

Funny. That word. Becoming. It used to be synonymous with beauty. We were trained to turn ourselves into something desirable based on… what? Commercial advertising?

I have Become. I am aging. I am flawed. I love that I can bask in the filter of a southwestern sunset. I don’t want Instagram to fade my blemishes. I have earned them. Every scar.

I have become. I have no time to waste on trying harder. Fixing things. Perking or plumping or embellishing. My mascara runs, if I wear it, because the tears of joy, or pain, and the sweat of suns from Fairbanks to Phoenix melt the paint from my lashes, which will always only be mine, as sparse as the good lord determines.

I have become. I’m happy to give up the underwires and push-ups and longlines and balconets and demis and, regardless of the cruel feedback I have received, wear, or NOT wear, whatever the hell I want to.

I have become. I am grateful that aging means my annoying witch hairs now grow in white, and are less visible before I get to plucking them.

I have become. I grateful that my body, as broken and soft and wicked as it is, can still be useful to the ones I love.

I have become. I am grateful for the pain of loss. The pain of growing older, that reminds me how very precious each moment, Each memory, Each touch, Each little surge of joy, really is.

Quit becoming. Just Be. And Come.

I have become.