In my middle aged face, I see both echoes of youth and glimpses of what I will be as an old woman, but my reflection today is muddled. I am unrecognisable. My eyes grow cloudy with the passing of days and the shape of my jaw takes on the weight of decades steeped in grief. I can no longer turn the odd curves of my face into something palatable. My features change with the seasons, grow heavy with the stress of caring for loved ones, watching them die. One day I will be the whisper of a wraith, but today I am clay moulded by the hands of time, prisoner to the piercing fingers of the clock. What was colourful is now grey, no green pastures on the other side. I am aching bones and sallow skin and  scars born of an unwelcome wisdom. I am creaking knees and pain so sharp, it wakes me from sleep, although my sleep is shallow now, plucked from my grasp by hormones that betray me, fill me with fire and sadness and anger, all without roots or reason. I am a farce of time, a perpetual act of coming unhinged. I am middle aged. I am invisible.