I think parts of me are different ages, you could tear me apart, limb by limb, and you would be able to never guess how the parts of me belong to each other. I am a paradox by my very existence. I am old and new at the same time. My fingers are old, they hold the earth like they have felt its waters a million times over. They drum along to old songs from the '80s, the '40s, and the '20s, then to hymns that were first sung thousands of years ago. They touch the ivory keys on a piano with the same fervor and curiosity that Mozart and Beethoven had. My hands are the oldest in the way they hold a paintbrush, only wanting to capture raw human emotion as softly as possible.

Yet my eyes are young, they have life and light in them. Yes, they show the heaviness of my pain but do not mistake that for a faded spirit. The youth in my eyes is only filled with possibilities. I look up at the stars and the universe with the same astonishment and child-like awe that you can see in cracks through the professional facade of astronomers when they send satellites into deep space. My eyes will show you all the things that you can be and everything you have ever wanted to be.

Just like that, I am made up of different pieces. My feet are old, they have walked this earth hundreds of times before and they are no strangers to the soil. I can walk anywhere, however long it takes me, I have no objections. My smile is that of a 19 year old, forever on the edge of adulthood but still standing in adolescence. I will hug you like I am 78, and this may be the last time. I will hold your hand like I am 2 and you are all I know and have in this world. I will love you in multiple ways. I will love you like the 8-year-old who needs her father's hand to jump across a river, and I will love you like we are 15 and have never known hurt before. I will love you like I am 18 and see the rest of my life with you. I will love you like I am 29, creating our life together. I will love you like I am 35, where, in the mess of life and chaos, I still choose you. I will love you like I am 50, still in love with your smile and the glitter in your eyes. I will love you like I am 83 and not even death can pull us apart. I will love you in all these ways, all at once.

I have no fear of turning 20, or 30, or 50, or 80 and I especially, have no fear of meeting death. For my soul is without age, it floats and it dances. It belongs to futuristic dreamers and impressionist painters. It reads the articles of tomorrow and falls in love with the classics of yesterday. My soul is not a diamond to be valued, it is simply beautiful because it is. I could guess my age in every mirror, but each time I would see something different. In one, I would see my mother's face, and in another, I will see my younger sister. My face, my features, and my aura were generations in the making and will be seen for generations to come. My eyes are hundreds of generations old, and my nose will be there for generations to come. You have seen me before and you will see me again.

I suppose I couldn't say how old I am, just that I am of this earth and in the most earth-shattering and unnerving way, I am human.

I'd be in my grandma's generation because my bootstraps are how I've always stood up, and the only ways I have seem to be uphill every time.

This damned phone contraption confounds me and I don't watch the boob-tube because it'll rot my brain.

I prefer wherther's original to warheads and I smell like peppermint.

I sew, cook, clean and my dreams are just of getting by and being able to have enough that I provide for myself.

I built my house thay i live in, ever board corner and shelf, every last nail.

I don't trust the government and i eat oatmeal.

I'd die for My country, but I hope to not have to.

I love big band and jazz, bossanova and gospel. Also I use a calculator and a pencil before Id Google it or check youtube.

Part of the clean plate club for life and not ashamed of it. If you were to ask me when my birthday is

It'd be my 40th thirty fifth one the 7th of january and id eat at olive garden.

Over my head to the left, strange shivering shapes dance across, over, and through the side-by-side rectangles of white sunlight beaming through the window on the opposite wall. Shadowed forms, sometimes touching and sometimes not, twirling and spinning, limping and dragging, skating and colliding upon the wall. I watch them, entranced, hypnotized by the movement, only breaking my watch when I need to blink.

Who are these tiny dancing beings? Are they furry, like Puppy? Are they cold, like ice cream? Will they come through my window? What will they sound like? Will they sing to me? What about if Mama sees them in here? Will she shoo them down the stairs like she does Puppy or let them stay? What if she steps on them like she did the hairy gray bug yesterday? Will they go crunch? Will they frighten her, and make her yell?

I think about these dancing creatures making my mama's lips part in a frightened cry, and the thought pummels a fist of fear into my own heart. A siren wail suddenly fills the room around me, so loud it startles me, and at my surprise the sound pitches even higher. Now, it feels like the room is spinning. The walls seem to quake and rattle with that wailing sound. My body feels hot and something wet is dripping down my cheek and chin. I wonder if one of those dancing shadows fell in through the window and puddled on my face. Will Mama blame me? Will she ask me how I made such a mess of myself? Will she know I didn't mean to? How did it happen? Terror overtakes me.

The door swings open. Mama. She doesn't look frightened, after all. Her rosy face is lit in an affectionate greeting, her brown hair is smoothed back into a swinging ponytail, and she has on her cookie-making clothes -- a tan overdress on top of her jeans and canary yellow sweatshirt. She looks so safe and regular and happy that I forget about the shape-shifting shadows. Everything must be all right, after all.

Mama lifts me up out of my crib into her arms, cradling me against her body and murmuring against my fuzzy bedhead hair, sweet-sounding words that make me feel cheery and warm inside the way a glob of her cookie dough dropped onto my tongue makes me feel. As she turns, moving to head back out the door, I find myself facing the wall opposite the window again. My shocked wail sails over Mama's shoulder toward the shivering shadowed beings. Her voice changes to one of concern, glancing back over her own shoulder to follow my worried gaze. Then, her golden laugh swoops me up upon its wave of joy, and I feel my own face breaking into a smile.

"Silly goose! Is that why you were crying, little goose?" I feel her arms tighten around me in that special way I crave that makes me feel that she wants tiny, silly, goose-head me to go on existing in her large, beautiful, unfathomably complex, cookie-scented, shadow-deflecting world so badly she doesn't want to even let one cell of my body slide out of her grasp. "Those are called shadows, silly girl. It's Spring. My flowers are growing, finally, and so tall this year! They're painting shadows on your wall."

I've no idea what she means, or what Spring is. I don't know much of anything. I don't know how it is that I exist in her world, how long I've been here, how long I'll stay, or why she wants me to. But being here with her assures me that I want to stay, too, at least for now. I will learn to know, to love, to laugh at, to deeply cherish, and to bring golden, Springlike beauty to my Mama's world, and that is enough.

I would be old enough to have known loss, and to have understood where that came from. I would be old enough to recognize the creases on my mother's forehead that did not yet mark mine. I would be old enough to know that death is possible, but perhaps not old enough to believe it could affect me. I would be old enough to have seen friends born near the same time as I, form families and have small ones of their own. I would be old enough to recognize that yet another winter has come and gone, flowers once again filling fields of green. I would be old enough to be expected to start my own path instead of trailing behind my parents. I would be old enough to confidently, but carefully, answer the siren song of adventure. I would be old enough to see the graying hair of my grandmothers, and recognize they were not immortal. I would be old enough to have seen beloved pets born and perish, too soon for my liking. I would be old enough to see a man and find them attractive, but maybe not old enough to feel the need to settle. I would be old enough to accept that I was an adult, but wise enough to know that does not mean I have seen everything.

If I didn't know my real age,

I'd probably think that I'm

a teenager still, as I look

a lot younger than I actually

am, and I'm still just as short

as I was when I used to

attend school, back then.

So, that's why I think if I

didn't know any better, I'd

think that I'm still a

teenager, not quite matured

or fully grown yet...perhaps?

My mind says I’m only twelve years old, my pictures, without filters, say I’m thirty-two.

But my body has been so abused and broken by different means, that the pain of living everyday makes me feel like onehundredthirtytwo!

My mind still wants to climb trees and run on the beach and ride horses.

My body says ouch! You’re too stiff for that, you can’t move that way anymore!

Just this week I got results back from testing last month and I have two disks in my neck deteriorating and three in my lower back deteriorating, one is bulging and causing pressure.

Im looking at wheelchair options…..

Im fifty five.

Im much too young to feel this damned old!

How old would I be if I didn`t know how old I am?

I would be ageless.

Boundless.

I would fly through life like Peter Pan,

oblivious to the adult`s greater plan.

I would be young and old, the ages of time

would be within me all at once,

And I would be enough.

Being too small would not exist.

Being too young would be an urban legend.

"You`ll understand when you`re older"

I would answer, "I am old enough."

But we all grow regardless of age.

I would be taught by life and learn from mistakes.

If there is no age for people to use against me,

I would be free to remain young until my body withers

and fades.

No age means no boundaries. No cage to feel trapped in.

I would be the master of my own fate.

I would have no age.