We have just celebrated the transition to the year 2024. The Chinese will soon, in turn, light their lanterns.
In between, I celebrated my birthday and yet I don't see myself getting old.
It seems I'm not the only one, and I couldn't tell you how many people have told me they don't feel like they're their age.
Time does not seem to have passed for us as we move forward, mature and take stock.
I understand us.
We do not have the means to capture these past years.
Perhaps we should have kept proof of this, day by day.
It must be said that time passes, discreet, elegant and persevering in its course.
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Nothing will stop her, and nothing will change her mind.
She never looks back.
She is life itself, imperturbable but always in motion.
We measure it with our calendars, we punctuate it with our New Year's Eves.
Its effects are ultimately noticed on our faces and bodies, which are clumsier and more wrinkled.
But all this is hardly noticed as it goes along.
I remember giving myself the challenge, at the age of 7, to scrutinize the metamorphosis of my hands for a whole year in order to capture this passing time and see myself change.
Obviously, I didn't catch anything at all.
From my point of view, my body remains the same;
he is what I am, still and always.
Where does this universal feeling of not feeling old come from?
Not matching his age?
Old age is what some people see in others.
My old touch, it's you who will observe it.
But between my personal feeling and what you are looking at, there stands a whole world – a whole time, I should say!
I don't have the experience of my age or this duration of walking.
If a few indicators can test the contrasts – a few threads of silver in my hair, oblique lines on my face – I will never see the passage.
It is therefore in the eyes of others that I discover my age, and I sometimes have fun asking them what age they are willing to give me.
A life is dated for civil status and for History.
But for itself, the date has nothing to say.
Our calendars end up getting boring, our birthdays no longer help us capture the time that has passed.
And when the measure no longer matters, it is because we are mature enough to assert ourselves independently of these looks and these watches.
Our inability to identify with what makes us young or mature, well preserved or not, is a healthy resistance.
Not letting yourself be described by an age is the best way to stay alive.
Latest work published by Sophie Galabru:
Making a family
, Allary Éditions, 2023.