There is a couple I pass every evening 

While I ride my bike by the beach

Their hair is turning gray

But they walk at a comfortable pace

I smile at them as the sky burns

They smile back

What will I be when I ripen with age?

I remembered when I was seven

Stumbling around in my mother’s too-big heels.

I remembered wondering on my fifteenth birthday

When did they become too small for me?

I remembered my father telling me of old souls, 

And how I had one

But I can’t feel it yet. 

Maybe I’ll grow into it, 

Like how I grew into and out of those shoes. 

Time holds no prejudice

It simply marches onward.

I never liked “living in the moment”

Because it implies that my experiences are invalid

Regardless of whether I appreciated them, 

I lived that moment

I remember the collective emotion I felt for periods of my life,  

I gather the specificities of the months I listened to a certain genre of music, 

I seal into mason jars 

The juice of watermelon that drips down my chin like the rain from the rafters on my front porch,

I trap the night air from last year’s Fourth of July barbeque in my lungs, 

I surround myself with sensory images of all the sunsets I’ve ever seen to help me sleep. 

Is that what growing up feels like? 

Am I meant to live vicariously through past moments of euphoria?

When new relationships display their potential in front of me, 

Will I be able to accept them?

When I’m elderly and retired, 

When I’ve learned nearly everything the world has had to offer me,

Will a young girl pass me every day

While she rides her bike by the beach

And smile at me?

And will I smile back?