The Fierce Depths of Age
A reflection on maturity, visibility, and the untamed wisdom that only time can teach.
Aging holds a reputation it doesn’t deserve.
Society talks about it like it’s a slow dimming, a quiet erasure, a gentle slide into irrelevance. Whole industries exist to convince us that our value peaks early and declines on a predictable schedule and that we need to fight it every step of the way. Nearly everywhere we look, youth is the currency, vitality is the prize, and maturity is something to manage or mask rather than embrace.
However, the older I get, the less convincing that story becomes.
Because age doesn’t shrink us.
Age reveals us.
The deeper I sink into myself, the more I realize the passing years are not a loss. They are a deepening. A widening. A return.
Youth might dazzle, but age holds gravity.
Youth sparkles on the surface, but age carries currents.
Youth is the tidepool — charming, bright, shallow, full of quick-moving life.
Age is the ocean.
Vast.
Powerful.
Untamed.
And fiercely alive in a way surface-level attention will never touch.
Where Ageism Steals From Us
I’ve seen ageism in almost every part of my life: in queer spaces, in corporate culture, in communities obsessed with relevance. It shows up in the comments people think are harmless:
“Wow, you still look great for your age.”
“Forty is the new thirty.”
“You’re not old. Don’t say that.”
As if aging were a failure instead of an achievement.
Within the gay community especially, there’s a kind of cruelty that bubbles up from insecurity — younger men dismissing older ones with language meant to shame rather than honor. Corporate America isn’t much kinder, trading seniority for “fresh energy,” as though wisdom and experience somehow becomes obsolete.
And women? They bear the brunt more than anyone — in their bodies, their visibility, their choices, their worth. I cannot pretend to fully understand what that weight feels like, but I see the way the world treats your aging like a verdict instead of a victory. If no one has said it lately: you are radiant, powerful, and extraordinary at every age.
Here’s the truth:
There is nothing more magnetic than someone who has gone through life, come out the other side, and walks with a kind of self-knowing you cannot fake.
What Time Gives That Youth Cannot
Age gives us a fierce grace — a way of moving through the world without gripping for validation the way we once did.
It gives discernment: the ability to tell what’s real from what’s noise.
It gives boundaries: not from defensiveness, but from self-respect.
It gives sensuality: slower, richer, more honest.
It gives wisdom: the kind learned from living, not reading.
It gives presence: a rootedness you only gain after weathering enough storms to trust your own ground.
You can’t rush it.
You can’t fake it.
You can’t hack it.
Time does something sacred to us when we let it.
The Ocean and the Tidepool
I keep returning to the image of the tidepool and the ocean.
The tidepool glitters. It’s easy to see. Easy to praise. Everything is right there at the surface — colorful, enticing, alive with motion. It draws eyes without having to try.
But the ocean?
The ocean is where the mysteries live.
It doesn’t beg for attention.
It doesn’t argue to be seen.
It doesn’t need performing or proving.
It holds whole worlds beneath the surface — ecosystems, histories, depths so profound they reshape the land itself. It feeds the tidepool. It sustains the shoreline. It commands respect simply by existing.
This is what aging feels like when we stop fighting it:
We become the ocean.
My Own Turning Point
There was a time when aging scared me. It was embedded in me from a very young age, watching how my mom insisted on skin care regimens so we wouldn’t “look old” when we grew up. The obsession with lines, the crow’s feet, the signs of time. I started my own hyper-critical judgments in my mid-twenties, buying anti-aging creams and eye masks.
The belief was simple:
If I grow old — if I look old — I’ll be obsolete.
But then at work, I couldn’t be too young either, because then you’re dismissed or ordered around.
I remember one moment in my early thirties when I presented a proposal to my new manager — a technology that would help the entire company work more efficiently. Her response?
“Wow. Okay. So you’re more than just a pretty face.”
I was shocked, slightly offended.
“Thank you?” was all I managed.
From that single meeting, something shifted. I felt pressure pulling me in two directions at once — to compete with younger versions of myself in looks, energy, and style, while also wanting to be taken seriously for my experience, knowledge, and maturity. It was as though I was suddenly straddling two worlds, uncertain where I truly belonged.
It was a subtle fracture that lingered for years.
But something else has awakened over these last few years.
It happened as I healed.
As I built a life rooted in my values.
As I stopped performing and started remembering myself.
As I began to honor the relationships, the losses, the choices, the cracks, and the rebuilds that shaped me.
Today, I feel more alive at fifty-one than I ever did at twenty-six.
Not because I’m chasing youth,
but because I’m inhabiting myself.
I stand more grounded in my worth because of the life I’ve lived — what I’ve done, what I know, what I’ve survived, and what I’ve created. I am more discerning than ever about who has access.
And I do all of this fully, fiercely,
with a surety the younger me could never have imagined.
Aging as Rebellion
In a culture that worships youth, aging is a rebellion.
It is choosing to honor your history.
Choosing to be visible on your own terms.
Choosing to hold your power without apology.
Choosing to shine in ways that don’t need to be loud.
Choosing vitality over vanity.
Choosing depth over dazzle.
Choosing presence over performance.
And the people who love you for your depth?
Those are your people.
A Blessing for the Fierce Depths
As your years unfold — whether you’re thirty-five, forty-nine, sixty, or beyond — may you remember:
Your depth is not a diminishment. It is awe-inspiring.
Your maturity is not a fading. It is a celebration.
Your wisdom is not a consolation prize. It is a treasure.
Your presence is not less than it used to be — it is more.
May you age with ferocity.
May you love with vitality.
May you walk with a kind of grace that makes the world pause.
And may you recognize, in yourself,
the truth time has been shaping all along:
You were never meant to be a tidepool.
You were always becoming the ocean.
Reflection Prompt
What part of you is growing deeper, wiser, or more alive with each passing year? What would shift if you stopped mourning who you were and started honoring who you’re becoming?
I’d love to hear what this brought up for you.
Your reflections are part of the medicine, and every voice adds to the remembering of our collective sovereignty.
If this reflection stirred something within you, consider sharing it with someone who’s walking their own path of becoming. The ripples begin when we share the light we’ve found.
If you’re new here, welcome. I started Reflections from the Temple to be a space for those returning to their center — one breath, one truth, one remembrance at a time. Subscribe to receive each new reflection directly in your inbox.
I absolutely love this! Probably one of my favorite reads so far! So timely and packed with wisdom! 🙏🏾❤️
I love all of this. Choosing! All that choosing and allowing. I do feel my experience and wisdom is a treasure. The parts of me that have fully accepted myself, my experience, and my knowing while staying open and curious. I am also 51 with 52 in a few months and I have come to love aging. I honor, I embrace, and I absolutely see it as a gift. My older brother died at 26 I will always honor every year I get to continue to experience, witness, and evolve. It is all a privilege.