Forty Going on Sixty-three

Background: When I started to work with my therapist, I think it was in 1997, I was fifty-two years old. However, I kept feeling that I had all the time in the world because I was only forty. This age discrepancy was never discussed because I thought that I WAS FORTY OR AT LEAST I FELT LIKE I WAS. So if I believed and knew I was forty, so did my therapist. I saw my therapist as being about twenty years older than I was. The belief that time was an endless commodity kept me locked in this time warp until...

The years have past, but I stood still.
I thought my therapist was over the hill.
She taught me things that parents do
She challenged my beliefs and my emotional chaos.

I felt so great being twenty years younger than she
I knew that I had so much to do and she was wiser, older than me.
To be at peace at forty years old - so that I could mature
And be wise and peaceful at her older age.

The miracle of age and youth are easy to find and confuse
It's time in the present, time left behind, there is no time to lose.
A combination of memories now and then
Have made into me who I am right now

I have been with her for over eleven years
We have shared laughter and lots of tears
She has shared my pain and helped me to move on
I know myself better and can now trust my emotions.

Then one day it happened to me - unplanned and unprepared.
I walk into her office and this time I felt scared
I sat in a chair and looked at her deeply
She looked at me and waited for me to speak.

I had discovered a fact that would surprise her and me
I was not forty years old but rather sixty-three
How did this happen I do not know- where did all those years go?
But somewhere in therapy, I had matured and grown .

With her love and guidance and supporting ways
My endless nights had turned into days
I let go of my childhood traumas
And evolved into a mature woman with a better emotional self.

I spent those years thinking I was younger
Because my life had been filled with life's thunder
But now I feel safe to be my age.
And look who is my companion - but this mature sage!

Thank you, dear therapist and life coach of mine
The time we work together has been challenging and sublime
My time-line is adjusted and I am moving on
And I am blessed with you at my side. God Bless you! AMF