Like An Old book

Ever open an old book and the smell of the paper triggers something so deeply familiar to you, but you just can't place a memory to it.
You turn the pages slowly, taking in the scent... hoping a mental image will come; but nothing.
You run your fingers across its weathered pages gingerly, as if it were made of thin tissue... and something new occurs to you. You never really felt this book before. You read it so many times, and you loved all the words... you loved the story within it, but the book?
Now that there is history written in its smell, and the pages have worn thin; you suddenly feel it. It becomes a treasure to you.

Ever look at a face you've looked at your whole life... and realize you haven't been paying attention?
Something has changed, but you just can't place it. You study the new creases, but that's not it.
Is it the faint bluish circles that have formed under weary, restless eyes?
You touch it. Examine its illusion of youth... but nothing comes.
Maybe you wash away the mask you apply daily with little thought or care. Maybe you smile and try to remember a time when the only way you understood beautiful, was by the definition of others.

It's not the same; is it?
The older face.
The older book.

But somehow.... it is.