Looking in the mirror, I methodically blot and smooth flesh-colored powder over my face. I've never been a makeup kind of girl, and I'm amazed to notice that 53 years have suddenly taken up residence in the reflection that stares back at me. This new (or should I say old) me is prompted to reach for a little cover-up. That is, if I can find it, what with my eyesight changing and my short-term memory misfiring. 

A smidgen of color over my age-spotted skin feels like a protective layer not just for the SP factor, but also as a shield -- however thin -- against society's desire to pick apart the lot of us as we age. We are a somewhat vulnerable group, but we are growing. When our collective muscles are fatigued, at least there will be strength in our numbers. We will stand tall, we older-people-in-arms, and march into the sunset of our multilayered lives. 
Lately I feel as if I am zigzagging through time. I wish my life were more orderly, like chapters in a well-written book. I want to slow time down, savor moments more, and remember every single thing vividly. It's as if I have donned a new disguise and have become a reluctant party guest tiptoeing into this stage of life, or as I like to think, the middle part -- that is, if I live to be 106. 

My weeks are packed with a growing family, adding in-laws and grandchildren, aging and ill parents and other responsibilities that take my full attention. Even the travel time involved in visiting takes an unwelcome bite out of an already disappearing pie. 

I'm grateful for a full life and I feel extremely fortunate. And yet I have this gnawing sense of time slipping through my fingers, the pace of which takes my breath away. 

Every day I have what has become a complicated and consuming ritual as my body starts its inevitable (and I hope very slow) decline. I'm in decent health, but wow, what it takes to keep me going. I have bioidentical hormone replacement creams to apply, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants to ingest, and strength training to keep my muscles intact. My father, who is 84, recently sent me news about a new pill that helps tremendously with memory, though I'm not entirely sure what I did with his letter and clipping. 

There are suddenly so many more doctors to visit. And what about those newfangled tests we people of a certain age endure? I swear I am turning into a full-time job. 

And, there is the newest contraption hidden beneath the skin of my knee -- a whole new joint. Yup, the one I was born with wore out after years of athletics and a surgery at age 18 that left me with minimal cartilage in the joint. So in addition to other daily concerns, I am recovering from surgery and adapting to my new and improved body part. 

Pain, you ask? Well, yes, there is that. I thought someone had shot my knee clear off for the first three weeks post-surgery. At the first post-op visit, without even the slightest pause, the doctor assured me that my knee (or did he say "his knee"?) was perfect. He even wrote it on the chart, along with a big smiley face -- just like when I was a little girl after my first shot. 

But I'm happy to be four months into my physical recovery, and thrilled once again to navigate the terrain of the Lafayette Reservoir. During the past 20 years, I have logged more than 3,000 miles at this magical place. Nothing compares to a walk in nature to clear my mind or comfort me as I weather the inevitable storms of life. The full-circle path is the perfect metaphor as the landscape changes with the seasons, quietly accepting loss and birth, change and sameness. 

When my mom died 10 years ago, I walked that circle every day, sometimes even twice. I felt her in the stark and leafless branches, pitch-black against brilliant blue, stretching towards the sky begging to go home. And when the seasons changed once more and those same branches grew plump with flaming color, I felt her again right in the center of my heart. 

Now, as I approach the age of my mother when I felt that she was, you know, getting on in years, I pause as I see my reflection staring back at me. And I reach for that powder once again.