The Courage Of Becoming
My mother once told me, “It takes courage to get old.” I was in my early 30s, in my second year of healing from blood clots via blood thinners, while simultaneously learning how to sing again after 18 months of silence from vocal nodules on my vocal folds. At the time, I thought that was courage. But from where I sit now… it was only the beginning of understanding what she was telling me.
Aging in truth is a mirror… a relentless invitation to keep becoming, even as the world pushes you to perform or pause. The journey doesn’t slow because you’re tired. It doesn’t stop because you’ve endured. There is no finish line in becoming. Only breath, only presence, only now! I’m thankful for my elders as they are living testaments of what grace under weight looks like. Their wrinkles tell stories I haven’t lived yet. Their walk is slower, but their wisdom is urgent. I watch them closely because if I’m blessed to age in the years they’re currently embodying, I pray I’m able to do it as beautifully and gracefully as they have.
I’m learning, deeply, that nothing in this life is wasted. Everyone is given riches, but rarely in the same form. There’s joy here and loss there… a dream fulfilled and a wound reopened.
The myth we’ve been sold… that you can have it all at once, is a cruel trick played loud in the social marketplace. Billboards scream it, ads seduce us with it, and we consistently break our own hearts believing it. I know because I lived with a broken heart after purchasing what was sold… and I’ve had to learn to surrender so many “wants” just to stay faithful to the call on my life.
Who I am becoming…requires integrity that no photo can capture to be posted. There is no filter for this kind of walk, no applause for this kind of responsibility, and no audience for this kind of courage. I’ve plugged my father up to a machine each night just so his blood could be cleaned. I watched him go through two open-heart surgeries in six months. I’ve sat in the silence of transplant denial. I’ve stood in the stillness of losing him… and just like that, accepted that his transition made me a widow’s keeper.
There are lessons I would’ve missed if I wasn’t present with my dad in his last three years of illness. Painful, beautiful, sacred lessons that now equip me to be a container for my family.
This is why presence matters! Because presence is the only place courage can fully breathe.