Age Is Not Just A Number

We can say that age is just a number until we reach that number where we look back and see how much we have, or haven’t grown.

Age, in its own way, is a potential maturity marker. It’s a place-in-time keeper, a pausing retrospective analysis of what we have accomplished, what we are currently capable of, and of how far we still have yet to go in being able to tackle and grapple with life’s challenges.

Having been engaged to a man twenty years younger than me, I can tell you from my experience that when life got hard in our waiting to be married over three years, my already acquired life skills served me well to keep enduring and innovating to nourish our connection.

However, my beloved’s “inexperience” put him in a vulnerable position subject to pressure’s influences from family, society, and inability to affect his side of the equation. He was rendered powerless by forces bent on keeping him from advancing.

When I could finally visit him during a release in the pandemic’s lockdown, he had lost too much weight and was extremely unwell from the longterm stress he’d been under. He needed to break off our engagement so he could start a new life for himself, instead of waiting for further unknown time when the embassy for approving our K-1 would reopen.

(Thousands of couples around the world have been faced with such a decision.)

As much as losing him has crushed me and I have struggled toward recovery, if continuing to wait was harming my love, I had to set him free. Life makes no sense sometimes, and simetimes we just have to go another course than we want to – even if saying goodbye is filled with the deepest sense of loss and regret.

I generally do not agree with this type of philosophy. In fact, I stay until the game is won in mutual favor of triumphant positivity! But, not many people are built to endure and overcome such trials like I’ve become by time’s experience.

If my fiance had had a few more years of having toughed life out while succeeding in overcoming barriers before we met, I believe this would have gifted us with a better outcome (and COVID affecting the entire world made things farther beyond difficult).

In this respect, age is not just a number. It can present limitations, and it can challenge one’s abilities. Yet, it should not be the final word on any matter. There are younger people who have such strength of will and determination in their purpose that they see everything as just a riddle to unlock next levels for advancement.

It takes a certain flex in environment, clarity of mind, willingness of heart, and strong belief system for a person of any age to overcome such obstacles that life presents to us.