After Forty-Five

The body speaks a slower language now. 

It says rest where it once said run. 

Mornings crack a little louder —  knees, back, the unapologetic sun.

 But something else has opened —  a room you didn’t know you owned, 

where urgency has lost its bite, and you are sovereign in your own skin.

 You stop performing for the crowd. 

You learn the discipline of no. 

The friends who stayed are bedrock. 

The ones who left — you let them go.

 You read the menu without apology, order exactly what you want. 

You laugh too loudly in restaurants and wear the shirt your children taunt.

 The mirror shows a changing face —  lined, silvered, real. 

But behind it stands a person who refused to break, refused to kneel.

 And that’s the gift of the past forty-five: less hunger to be seen. 

More hunger to be awake, alive, fully present in the in-between.

 The world still worships youth and speed. 

You offer something steadier now —  a seasoned hand, a knowing eye, the wisdom of when to bow.

 Let them keep their starting lines. 

You are not racing toward applause. 

You’ve found a rhythm that does not beg —  

a quiet, unadorned fire that turns the ordinary to gold.

-Saj