Age - James at 15

"Earth"

Embroidery on Crushed Velvet

4' by 6'

Take what you like and leave the rest

Some years ago, a movie was released with the title "James at Fifteen".

At the time, I thought that was very strange-sounding. As if James at Fifteen was somehow inherently a different person than he would be at, say, thirty, or sixty.

Recently, I find that is pretty much what I do think.

How we express who we are, changes. We are not the same person that we were ten, twenty, years ago.   We might not even recognize ourselves, sometimes.  We think  differently.   We have had new experiences.  We have different priorities.

Each day offers us a little different slant on life, each day gives us a chance to start afresh, yet each day follows the days that have gone before it.  Over time, we change and grow (hopefully).  We can build only on that which we have experienced and our experience does include what we have learned by watching the experiences of others.

 It is not possible to say that one age is somehow better or more valid than another time in our lives.  We should not discount ourselves because we are only 5 years old, or because we are 75 years old.  And no one else should either.   

The age we are at right now, is the only time we can speak of with certainty.   Our vision of ourselves when we were younger, is not necessarily entirely accurate.  Our plans for who we will be when we are older may never come to pass.

Now is the only time. Who we are at this very minute is the only one of us we can be sure of.

We may be different tomorrow.