In 1922, Margery Williams wrote what is typically referred to as a children’s book called The Velveteen Rabbit. I suspect that like most people, I would have considered it a book for children and dismissed it. But I am older now and ran across this wonderful quote from the book:
“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, 1922
Prior to crossing the 50 year old line I would have not understood that this has little to do with children at all and is instead a metaphor on getting old hidden in a wrapper for children to discover later in life.