Indulge me for a moment, please.

What’s your age? I know it’s a personal question, but say that number out loud (if only to yourself).

Next, subtract five. Say that number aloud (no one’s listening, promise).

Pretty similar, huh? Numerically, they’re not that distant. And if you were blessed enough to live into the double digits, live decades even, the difference may be marginal, at best.

Now return of that first number, your age. Think of all you went through to get to this moment. The loves and the hates, the brokered peaces and the broken pieces, the exes and the ohs, the wisdom and the foolishness that somehow did not topple you. It’s no small feat. When you think long enough of the road you hoed, it can leave a body fatigued. And ain’t we all?

But now, think of that second number, when you were five years younger. What did you used to be able to do? How long could you work, walk, play, engage? What occupied your frontal lobe? Who did you see in the mirror? It’s only five years, but when you think of that body, that traveler, the steps feel more springy.

It doesn’t matter your age. Five years ago, you were a young person. We can’t help but polish memory to a shine.

It could seem a cold realization, that time is little more than a candied apple which cloaks bruising that remains nonetheless.

But here’s the good part.

Think of five years from now. Perhaps you won’t like the number. Perhaps you don’t care. Either way, you will look back at today and see a young person. One who could walk for miles, smile for days, commit the beautiful and horrific errors of youth. Someone somehow…different.

That person is here. That person is now. That person is you.

Forget what I said about apples. Time is like a TV. You can go broke investing in resolution. Ultimately, a television’s worth rests solely on viewing angle.

For once, the automakers were right. That object, the one that’s in the mirror.

It’s closer than it appears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHlo_N34vuo