It does not happen all at once.
Wisdom does not arrive
with the grey in your hair
or the ache in your bones.

But slowly,
as seasons repeat,
you stop reaching
for what does not last.

Silence grows softer.
Questions grow deeper.
You no longer argue to win,
you listen to understand.

Regret teaches gently,
and patience becomes a kind of strength
you never asked for
but now carry with grace.

You see yourself
in the eyes of the young,
and instead of warning,
you offer space.

This is not surrender.
It is clarity.
It is the moment
when age
no longer resists reason,
but walks beside it.