“In youth we learn; in age we understand.”
— Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Aphorisms
When I was twenty-four I thought thirty-five sounded like the beginning of the end of something. I’d stare at older women on the subway and try to read their faces for evidence of loss. What I didn’t see then — couldn’t see — was the particular settledness they carried. The way they didn’t seem to need anyone’s approval for how they looked or what they ordered or whether they laughed too loud.
I’m not there yet. But I’m closer. And what surprises me most about getting older isn’t the things that fade — it’s what quietly arrives: a slightly thicker skin, a shorter list of people whose opinions actually matter, a growing ability to sit in a room alone and feel like enough company.
Youth is beautiful partly because it doesn’t know yet what it’s worth. Getting older is learning the value of things while you still have time to enjoy them.