Epic Seconds

So, I am toddling about on a beach in the mid-Atlantic where wild horses wander, actively pondering the workings of the universe and somewhat annoyed at gaining a few pounds and a few well deserved gray hairs.  I think it is odd that I still see myself as a 30 year old but note that guys no longer give me a second look as I pass. I wander into the beach bath house and notice a young woman around 18-21 years old that weighs about 40 pounds more than me blow drying her hair and sauntering around in her paisley thong and cropped t-shirt.

Her mother has never 'fat-shamed' her.  It was quite obvious that no one ever said to her; "You would be so beautiful if you lost some weight.".  She was a living, breathing, stunning work of art. I was suddenly and instantly jealous and envious and in awe of her. I've never experienced anything like that! She lives in a completely different world and I actually found myself thinking that while I simultaneously love and hate many portions of her world, I want to live in it too.  Then I found myself wanting to believe that I have contributed in creating this world for her in which she can be so confident and comfortable in her skin.  Perhaps I have...

I toddle out behind her as 4 young bucks await her emergence like a plump flutterby from a cocoon, and she did not disappoint.  I wish I had that confidence at any point in my youth.  She was obese and breathtaking!  She looked healthy and beautiful in every way rockin' that paisley thong and cropped tee.  I am still processing it all. She stunned me with her beauty. Again, truly a work of art. Oh what I could have achieved with all that confidence!  My history is a different world altogether filled with many endearing, amazing, beautiful and sometimes tragic and insecure epic seconds which now include her.  I was experiencing such a vast array of emotions in those brief but epic seconds.

I found my mind wandering to a different time in a far away world that is known only to me as My-Story but is as foreign and alien in this time as any planet in the universe.  I still see glimpses of that old world when I walk in the rain or am hiking in the woods or even wandering through a department store-until I see a mirror or some other reflective surface showing an image of the old woman looking back at me.

I am struggling to figure out just when it happened.  I went from a reasonably "hot chick" to an "old woman" in an epic second!  Shit!  I really thought I was paying attention.  It is such an odd & startling epiphany. I wish someone would have warned me.  Shit! Time is fleeting. I want more epic seconds!