She'll Come Back to You
I’ve been slowly listening to Richard Rohr’s book, Falling Upward, on Audible. I read this book back in 2021, scribbling my way through the margins. Now, hearing it read to me by Richard, it’s hitting me in a new way.
In one of the earlier chapters, he references the quote, “No wise person ever wished to be younger.”1
This book comforts me, as it does many others, in the way that it reframes midlife upheaval and disappointments as invitations rather than catastrophes. Instead of seeing life as a single upward climb, Rohr shows that the most meaningful growth often begins when the first-half strategies stop working.
I listen to this right as I step into my 48th birthday. It softens me. It reminds me that with each year “up” in age I go, I actually slide back down closer to the me I’ve always been - beneath the packaged Allison.
I write these words and I mean them. And the other part of what I want to say is that after going for a solo walk the morning of my birthday, I returned home where I very enthusiastically opened this birthday present. This being the one thing I told my husband I truly wanted:
48-year-old me, celebrating beneath my Shark CryoGlow LED Face Mask.
Ah, there is so much rebellion in aging, isn’t there? If my fine lines could speak, they would have so much to say. They show the stories I’ve stayed stuck in, the ones I laughed at through tears and the things I’ve squinted past, afraid to face fully. Perhaps I’ve been reading too much between the lines. Afraid to embrace these new fine lines of mine.
But I don’t think that’s it, entirely. I think my eyes are showing my age because I have let my blue soft slivers become rivers. A quiet record of truths flowing down my cheeks. My fine lines are tributaries carved by tears finally freed after years of swallowing them whole.
And still.
Still, I yearn to smooth those lines out. Erase the age that crinkles my eyes as they cringe at what they see in the mirror. I curse cortisol as I scoop collagen into my smoothies.
So yes, this was a vanity purchase. But it’s also something else. This mask has become a micro-sanctuary. This glowing, clunky mask turns me into a creature of limitation. I simply cannot multitask with it on. I can’t wear it and my glasses together so forget about reading anything. It is attached to a remote control and is heavy so moving around proves problematic. I am forced to simply sit still. Listen to its melodic hum, close my eyes and forget. Forget about trying to get anything done for these glorious 6 minutes. A warm red glow, and me, still and hands free.
The irony is not lost on me. The very device meant to erase time forces me to sit inside it. It hums like a tiny spaceship, vibrating with the promise of smooth youth all while it forces me to partake in the oldest ritual there is — sitting with myself. Held hostage in breath under the red halo of my new self-care routine.
I left this shiny new birthday present at home when my family slipped away on a vacation to Florida. While waiting at the airport to board the flight back home, my daughter suddenly grew exasperated — alarmed to realize her phone was flashing its own kind of red light -the low‑battery warning. Less than 20% left.
Ensue panic. Because WHAT will she do on the plane if she cannot compete against her father in Block Blast?!?!
Out of sheer exhaustion mixed with a slight fear of my own daughter, I scanned the perimeter of the Gate 2B and found seats that had charging stations attached. The only one unoccupied sat between a woman with her head in a book, unaware of anything else going on (hi, I know you/I’ve been you) and a young mom with a preschooler climbing all over her.
I nodded in their direction and told my daughter to go sit there and charge her phone up. The abhorrent horror of that suggestion showed on her face, so I put my book down and walked over with Caroline’s phone. I asked if I could slide in for a bit and charge. Of course, the young mom said. Nothing from the book head.
From across the gate, Caroline could see I was struggling to get the charge going. She sauntered over and ripped the plug out, attempting over and over to do it herself (because clearly, I must have been doing something wrong). When her efforts proved futile, she began to melt down. “WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!!?!?”
Thankfully, a man a few seats down graciously offered up his seat with the charging outlet, so I was saved from my offspring’s 12-year-old wrath. As I got up to move to the other seat, embarrassed by my daughter’s display of a teen tantrum, I said to the young mom with the cherub faced four-year-old daughter on her lap, “she what you have to look forward to.”
The mom smiled and said, “Don’t worry. She’ll come back to you.”
I half-laughed as I looked up at her. We locked eyes and I nodded.
Oh, the push-pull of the mother/daughter relationship.
All week while away, she was like Velcro to me. In the stores we perused, she was on my heels. Wouldn’t even saunter one aisle away. We swam together, went on morning walks together - it seemed she could not have her fill of me. It made my heart swell, if I’m being honest.
The myriad moments of motherhood. A koala bear one minute, grizzly the next. This is all of it. The safety of love.
And later the next day, as I sat acclimating myself with my routine at home, underneath the red-light mask I realized something. That sentence rings true in many ways.
“She’ll come back to you.”
All this chasing of youth. Wishing I could smooth the fine lines. Have the face from my 20s and 30s. All that effort is misplaced, really. Because beneath that youthful glow was such discomfort. The quiet internal glare of inner disrespect. I wore that face, but I didn’t live inside it with any real tenderness towards myself.
What I’m really longing for today are the years I lost to self‑erasure. The years I spent pretending I was fine. The years I spent plastering fake smiles on my face, with the wrinkles today to prove it.
We disrespect ourselves for years until suddenly, often in midlife, we return.
We come back. She comes back. The young girl you were before the mirror made you want something else.
We meet our own eyes and say, wordlessly, welcome back
Photo by Shutter Speed on Unsplash
