Pencil sketch
Copyright 212 Margaret Sloan

The night before my birthday this image came out as I sat doodling in bed. (It’s my favorite time to just draw without worrying about results. I sleep better—if I sleep at all—after a visual brain-dump of how I’m feeling at the end of the day.)

You may already know that after a certain age birthdays still hold joy, but also anxiety and trepidation. I’m getting older, that’s all there is to it, and with age comes a kind of panic that I haven’t done all that I have meant to do. There’s a hopelessness that I never will accomplish what I set out to do. And a heart-wrenching sadness that in our youth-obsessed culture, my age can and will be used against me.

But dammit, I’m still on the wheel, working harder at turning it than when I was young. And in many, if not most respects, I’m doing a better job at the half-century mark than I ever did when I was young.