THE GIFT IF AGING, THE POWER IF DISCONNECTION, AND THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE

by

LEDA GREEN

There is something sacred about aging — not as a burden to be mourned, but as a quiet revolution. With every passing year, we shed expectations like worn-out garments. We begin, slowly but surely, to disconnect from public opinion, judgment, and the constant pressure to perform for others. This disconnection is not indifference; it is liberation.

Aging — especially in a world ravaged by wars, inner and outer — is not just natural, it is miraculous. To survive to an older age in this harsh reality is a kind of success, a sign that we have navigated through storms, heartbreaks, and illusions. We have lived, and more importantly, we are still living.

Nostalgia plays a tender role in this process. As we age, our preferences begin to lean not toward what is trending, but what is timeless — to us. The music we choose recalls moments when we felt fully ourselves. The clothes we wear are no longer about fashion but about expression, comfort, and memory. The way we decorate our spaces becomes a reflection of the landscapes within us — softer, deeper, truer.

In a way, nostalgia becomes a form of self-honoring. It reminds us that we’ve been through things. That we are not just adapting to the world, but shaping our own private one within it. A room, a song, a scent from childhood — these become anchors in a world that is otherwise too fast, too loud, too fragile.

But perhaps the most revolutionary truth we come to understand as we age is this:
We don’t have to do anything.

We don’t have to get married.
We don’t have to have children.
We don’t have to stay in relationships that drain us, or perform roles we never chose.
We don’t have to follow rules that were never written with love.

The world teaches us early that there is a right way to live — a tight script of marriage, parenthood, career, and belonging. But the deeper truth is that we came here not to conform, but to experience. We came to feel. To grow. To meet ourselves through the mess and beauty of life. As long as we harm no one — including ourselves — everything is permitted. Creation is free. Love is free. We are free.

We humans are each other’s heaven or hell.
And the fate of our lives is shaped not by cosmic punishment or reward, but by the infinite choices we — and those around us — make, moment by moment. This web of decisions forms our lived reality. Not all pain is fate; much of it is simply human decision.

Relationships, too, must be reimagined in this light.
We were not born to be trapped in the illusion that marriage or cohabitation is the highest or only form of love. The majority of people do not yet know what unconditional love truly means — and so, most relationships inevitably fall into the trap of conditions, expectations, roles. And when two people are caught in fulfilling their own material desires and psychological needs, the relationship begins to lose its essence.

At our current collective state of consciousness, long-term, unconditional love is rare.
But it is possible.

When we finally let go — of control, of fear, of needing love to look a certain way — and begin to give and love unconditionally, regardless of the other person’s state, we open the door to eternal relationship. A bond no longer based on form, but on essence. No longer maintained by rules, but by presence.

This is only the tip of a vast and abstract truth.
But it matters — deeply — to those who are awakening.

So yes, as we age, we may find ourselves nostalgic.
We may return to simpler styles, older songs, quiet colors.
But in truth, we are not retreating.
We are arriving —
at ourselves.

And in a world that constantly tries to define us, aging becomes the most radical act of all:
to be exactly who we are,
and owe no one anything.