Ripening, for me, is another name for getting older. This is not the over-ripe mass of brown apple pulp. Rather, it is the bright red crispness and luscious sweetness of ripened fruit at its peak. I think of a piece of fruit as it was destined to become. Full of flavor, tasty. This is what it means to get older.
I have emerged from an illusion. There was a time I celebrated the age of flowering. It was a moment of fragrance, full of promise, fancy to behold. I never knew I was only experiencing a forecast of the magnificence yet to come.
Now I know what it means to begin ripening, and I think for me the process has only begun. The lovely petals of the flowers have long disappeared and the swelling fullness of my humanity is only now beginning to express itself.
My mind has moved to a new skill level, and the memory of what I imagined was my prime time has faded. This is closer to what I was meant to be. The toddler Barry was no more human than an acorn is an oak tree. I was only a faint promise of what was yet to be.
I love the feeling of getting older, this time of ripening. My heart swells with the fullness of newly aroused anticipation and the glow of ripening is beginning to emerge. I am becoming a part of the universe in a way I never imagined was possible. For me, it is a process that has only begun. I know the best is yet to come, a period when I can more fully experience my oneness with my world.
I never knew there was this hidden path to joy and oneness. Now I am determined there will be no dried and rotten husk. I excitedly lean toward the day when it is time to eat and be eaten.