68

A New Year

Sixty-eight years
and not a single one wasted,
even the hard ones.
Especially the hard ones.

I have been
soft as dawn
and sharp as frost.
I have bent,
not broken—
though there were days
I rested very close to the ground.

I’ve learned that strength
is not loud.
It breathes.
It listens.
It waits until the right moment
and then stands anyway.

There were seasons
when love arrived like a blessing
and others when it left
without explanation.
I survived both.
That counts for something.

My body carries the record—
every laugh, every grief,
every carried weight.
Not flaws.
Footnotes.

At sixty-eight
I no longer chase certainty.
I choose attention.
The warmth of coffee in my hands,
light on bare branches,
the quiet relief of being honest
with myself at last.

I am not finished.
I am not fading.
I am becoming—
slower, truer,
less impressed by noise,
more loyal to my own pulse.

Today I honour the woman
who stayed.
Who learned.
Who lived.

Sixty-eight years in—
and still here.
Still curious.
Still breathing.
Still mine.

— BJ