Reflection in the mirror.

I looked into the mirror tonight, long and hard.  The fine lines are growing deeper, skin tougher, eyes bloodshot.  This is not self loathing but rather somber reflection.  I am no longer young, but I am not yet old, and feel the same as in my 20's.  At least I like to think so.  But if I am a truth teller in my reflection many things about me have changed.  Reality of life and death has set in.  I am not immortal, not above pain, not below grace.  Romanticism is not sustainable, and I tire of trying to be culturally relevant.  Image is nothing, money is nothing more then a means to and end, accumulation of things is gluttony, and political correctness is shit.  I don't want to be a people pleaser, to convince this fickle world that I am worth while.  I am done with the idolatry of self: my job, my calling, my education, my image, my identity, my Facebook.  Tear down the shrines in my life, there is only one whom I long to please.  I am in this time of not young, and not old.  Enough wrinkles to mark my face, but enough to bear artistry in the living of a life.  There is nothing about me that sets me above others, and that is just fine.  I see the beautiful people, all the time, energy and money that goes into maintaining that beauty, it must be exhausting.  As age sets in they cling to their beauty in pathetic ways, spending obscene amounts of money on something that will not last.  It all goes south in the end.  I want to be known for my substance and not my packaging.  For my character, not my facade.  This body of mine, this face of mine, will never be as it once was.  It transitioning from youth to maturity.  I can only hope that my inward being is moving to maturity as well.