Sometimes I really miss the East Coast.

I’m happier in my life than I have ever been, but I grew up back east spending a few weeks every summer at the shore. And sometimes I miss that.

There’s a beautiful poem called “I Want to Age Like Sea Glass” by Bernadette Noll. It ticks a lot of boxes for me: the childhood memories of picking up sea glass near Asbury Park, the sense that I am getting older and further away from that experience, the knowledge that change has been mostly good and kind but that all change is bittersweet.

This poem covers that. I’ve always loved it, but here in my late thirties, I see it really differently.

I have a wall of poems in my classroom, where I print out poems for kids to find in the wild. I didn’t find a printable I liked for this poem, so I thought I’d share mine here.

I also made some phone backgrounds! They’re all below the text of the poem

I want to age like sea glass

by Bernadette Noll

I want to age like sea glass. Smoothed by tides, not broken. I want the currents of life to toss me around, shake me up and leave me feeling washed clean. I want my hard edges to soften as the years pass—made not weak but supple. I want to ride the waves, go with the flow, feel the impact of the surging tides rolling in and out.

When I am thrown against the shore and caught between the rocks and a hard place, I want to rest there until I can find the strength to do what is next. Not stuck—just waiting, pondering, feeling what it feels like to pause. And when I am ready, I will catch a wave and let it carry me along to the next place that I am supposed to be.

I want to be picked up on occasion by an unsuspected soul and carried along—just for the connection, just for the sake of appreciation and wonder. And with each encounter, new possibilities of collaboration are presented, and new ideas are born.

I want to age like sea glass so that when people see the old woman I’ll become, they’ll embrace all that I am. They’ll marvel at my exquisite nature, hold me gently in their hands and be awed by my well-earned patina. Neither flashy nor dull, just a perfect luster. And they’ll wonder, if just for a second, what it is exactly I am made of and how I got to this very here and now. And we’ll both feel lucky to be in that perfectly right place at that profoundly right time.

I want to age like sea glass. I want to enjoy the journey and let my preciousness be, not in spite of the impacts of life, but because of them.

The full poem is here: I Want to Age Like Sea Glass printable free. It’ll print beautifully. I love having it on my classroom wall!

If you prefer a phone wallpaper, check out these: