45 is the New 35

Some days, I watch life flowing past me with the silence of a timid pigeon... 

Ankara nights spent in the cold and dark... The smell of soot that brought my childhood to its knees... We always blamed you. If you hadn't been so cold, I wouldn't have been fooled by every fire I thought would melt the ice on my feet. 

If you hadn't been so dark, 

I wouldn't have called the winter sun my savior and let my flowers bloom... 

Life, I misunderstood you. 

I am at the turning point of a new age. Forty-five in words. 45 in numbers.

My life is full of times when I felt much older. 

Exhausted and broken... 

Times when I felt hunched over, as if not just the world, but the entire galaxy was resting on my shoulders. 

And when I stood up straight again. 

I don't know if it's a very sweet coincidence or another gift from life saying, 'Come on, smile.' My aunt sent it the other evening. A YouTube channel had turned my life into a video. I won't lie, I said 'Oh no!' at first. I wondered what kind of absurdities would be in it? 

When it comes to me, there is no shortage of material. 

My son, my height, of course my legs, my marriages, my divorces, some of my gaffes, etc., etc. 

I opened it with fear, but after a few minutes, my heart ached. 

Simple, real, without exaggeration, without agitation... 

As they say, 'My life passed before my eyes like a film strip'... 

That is exactly what happened. 

I always say, 'A person is blind to themselves in this life.'

They are always in need of appreciation from others. 

Cruel to themselves... 

They say things to themselves that no one else would dare to say... 

And without even a pang of conscience. 

While they don't know how to embrace themselves, they want someone to come and wrap them up in a hug. 

They are always looking for or waiting for a miracle. 

Without looking at what they have achieved in this life... 

For a while now, I have been managing to embrace myself, to smile, to say 'well done, girl.' 

Learning this was not very easy. Of course, I still lose my balance from time to time... 

But I immediately grab myself by the ear and bring myself back to the center. 

I felt this while watching that video, too. That for a while, I had lost my balance again. 

That I was judging my life by the present and ignoring my experience. 

Even belittling it... 

Even forgetting so many things I have lived through... 

How I came out of those times, which I thought would never end and never pass, alive and strong... 

How lucky I am despite everything... 

Sometimes, the thing we call a miracle is just being able to wake up healthy every morning. 

If you have a child, it is them being able to smile at you, or even being able to say 'Mom' or 'Dad'. 

The thing you call a miracle is your eyes that see, your ears that hear, your legs that can take a step, your arms that can embrace... 

Life is not a straight road. If it were, it wouldn't be worth living anyway. 

Uphill, downhill, asphalt, stony, snowy, slippery... And in some places, lush green, gardens and orchards. 

They all have their own unique taste. 

They all teach you something and pass by. 

Of course, it depends on how much you want to see and learn. 

'Age thirty-five! It is half the way.

Like Dante, we are in the middle of life.' 

If Cahit Sıtkı were writing this poem in the present time, he might have corrected it to age forty-five... 

The forties are the times when we understand life, calm down, and feel exactly in the middle of it... 

So, 45 is the new 35.