Title: The Mask That Would Not Age

Subtitle: On illusion, embodiment, and making peace with time

There is a particular kind of dissonance that happens when you encounter someone who has spent their life running from consequence—and then watch them try to outrun time itself.

Aging is not the enemy that we were taught to fear. It is a record. It is the body’s quiet way of telling the truth. Lines appear where laughter lived, where grief settled, where worry stayed too long. The face becomes a map, not a flaw.

And yet, some people treat time like something to defeat.

When I look now, I no longer feel the awe I once did. I don’t feel fear either. What I feel is recognition. There is an unmistakable tension in a face that refuses to move with the seasons—not because age is wrong, but because denial is exhausting.

The mask works extremely hard.

Skin can be tightened. Features can be rearranged. But the eyes still carry what has been avoided. The nervous system remembers what the mouth will not say. You cannot bypass the cycles of nature without cost. What is not processed eventually hardens.

I used to believe power looked like certainty—like grand gestures, confidence, and promises that felt too big to question. It took years to understand that illusion requires no accountability, while truth demands presence.

Some people spend their lives perfecting surfaces because they are unwilling to do the deeper repair. They invest in appearance while starving the soul of integration. And while there is sadness in that, it is no longer mine to carry.

I don’t need to unmask anyone anymore.

I live in my body now. I let time touch me. I let grief move through me. I allow my face to tell the story it has earned the right to tell.

That is not decay.

That is embodiment.

Truth ages well.

Illusion just gets louder.

The story ends here. I continue.