At my 46th birthday party last October, a friend caught me mid-bite with a question I wasn't prepared for.

“What unconventional wisdom do you have now that you’re 46?”

I closed my eyes and sat with it for a few breaths until an answer came to me.

“The older I get, the more I recognize certain qualities in myself that don't seem to change.”

I smiled. She looked at me, puzzled.

“That's interesting. I've never thought about it that way,” she said.

I hadn't given that answer any thought before saying it out loud, but once I got home, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I started journaling, convinced there was an essay worth writing, but sensed there were more layers to uncover. I needed time to understand what I really meant.

I turned 47 this week, and I've been thinking about that conversation again.

My hairline is receding, and my joints ache when I get out of bed. I can no longer pick up Faye, my seven-year-old daughter. Eliza and I are approaching twenty years together, and some of my oldest friendships now span four decades.

I'm closer to seventy than I am to twenty.

And yet, the more I pay attention, the more I recognize qualities in myself that feel remarkably ageless.

I've always had an appetite for connection, both with people and nature. I'm endlessly curious, and when something interests me, I want to learn everything I possibly can, as quickly as I can. I get excited easily, sometimes to the point where my enthusiasm is impossible to contain. That energy has been with me since childhood, along with a restlessness I've never quite outgrown.

I’ve also carried an innate sense of right and wrong. Even when I’ve done things I knew were wrong, dishonest, or hurtful, I could feel it in my body.

As a teenager, I remember sitting by the ocean in Swampscott, watching the tides recede and noticing my thoughts come and go. Sometimes they would vanish entirely, but I was still aware of myself and everything around me. There was nothing to do or figure out, just the experience of being there.

I've felt that same sense of presence throughout my life, especially when I'm alone in nature. These days, I experience it more often. I've been meditating for years, and while the practice has helped me recognize that awareness on and off the cushion, I know it was there long before I started.

I've spent the past fifteen years working to grow and heal. I've gotten sober, spent years in therapy, and questioned stories about myself that I once believed were reality. I'm grateful for how much I've changed, and I know there's still more growing to do.

What's surprised me is that all this work has brought me closer to qualities that have been with me for as long as I can remember.

Some have been easier to embrace than others. My restlessness, for example, has often made it difficult to appreciate and simply be with what's right in front of me. I've spent years trying to tame it, but lately I'm more interested in understanding and accepting it.

I'm beginning to appreciate these qualities in a way I couldn't even a few years ago. I can see how they've shaped my life and expressed themselves differently over the years, even as something essential about them has remained constant.

A year later, I'm beginning to understand what I meant. I still believe in growing and changing, but there's something comforting about recognizing how much of myself has been here all along.

The more I embrace these qualities, the more I feel like myself and part of something timeless.