Aging

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.
-- Madeleine L'Engle

OK.  Now it's not just my son that tells me I'm old.  When I told the kids in my youth group the other night my age, they didn't say it with words, but their faces said it all,  "My gosh, she's ancient!"  One of them said, "I would never have guessed that you were....." are you ready..."THAT old!"  I'm fifty- three years old.  Alright, soon to be fifty-four.  I remember being their ages and thinking that fifty-anything was almost dead.  Yes, my mind is still functioning fairly normally, even at my advanced age!

What I didn't know then, was how much smarter I would be when I got to be "THAT old!"  I've learned so many valuable lessons, such as:

• The time to begin most things is ten years ago.  The author of this quote is anonymous but I thank him or her because this is so true.  Why do we wait?  We always think there will be a better time:  when the kids are grown, when the house is paid off, when ...whatever.  At this point in my life I've seen too many people who put off their dreams and desires until too late and they never even got to start working on them.  The dream was placed in your heart for a reason, so just start.  Don't wait for any reason.  Just begin...NOW!
• The older you get, the more you tell it like it used to be. Another author unknown.  Why is it that we tend to remember things differently than they felt at the time?  Could it be that with a little hindsight, with a little maturity and experience, we come to understand that what we thought was so very difficult at the time, was really a great lesson in disguise?  Even in the absolute worst of experiences, there is always some little glimmer of light.  With age, we see those little lights and value them because we know they are so few and far between.
• There's always a lot to be thankful for if you take time to look for it. For example, I am sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt.-- Author Unknown  In this age of Botox and face lifts and tummy tucks and all the other tucks, I'm kind of proud of my wrinkles.  I don't have many, just a few crow's feet so far.  And I kind of like those.  I think they're the evidence that I smile and laugh a lot.  That's a good thing.  I've earned these wrinkles and I think they reflect the good life I've had.  A lot of people would tell you that my life has been hard and I've certainly had my share of ups and downs, but I choose to see it all as good life lessons and instead of frown lines, I've got crow's feet from my squinty smile (that's what a photographer told me I had one time).  YEA!!!  I've got crow's feet from my squinty smile!
• Time wounds all heels. -- Dorothy Parker  Thank you, Dorothy!  You are right!  I used to worry so much about how unfair life was.  It seemed that people who worked so hard for things always ended up with the short stick, but what I've come to understand now that I'm "old" is that everything evens out in the end.  I don't have to worry about those folks who take the short cuts, or those that walk on others to get where they want.  Call it karma, call it fate, call it whatever you want, but in the end, everyone will get what they deserve, good or bad.
• You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred. -- Woody Allen  Now, don't get me wrong.  I eat healthy foods, I take long walks, I try to live a healthy, balanced life, but I also remember that this is the only life I'm going to have so there has to be some enjoyment too.  If I feel like eating cookie dough, I do!  If I feel like skipping my walk today or even a couple of days, I do!  I just don't make it a regular habit to do all the unhealthy things, especially at one time. 
• You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there.-- George Burns  This one made me laugh out loud, because I do this!  Now, don't deny it!  All you people my age and older, you know that you do it too!  You bend down to put your shoe on and you see some lint on the floor, or you find something you lost, or.....   You know you do this!
• At twenty we worry about what others think of us; at forty we don't care about what others think of us; at sixty we discover they haven't been thinking about us at all.  Author Unknown  You know, it really is true, if all our friends were jumping off a bridge, we would have jumped too.  Our peers were that important to us.  We spent all our time worrying about what they all thought.  Then we reached the ripe old age of forty, or thereabouts, and we just decided that we didn't care anymore.  Let them think what they want!  It's only when we reach this age that we realize just how self-centered we've been.  While we hope that we have been, and continue to be, important to a few people in our lives and that they think of us once in a while, we now understand that we're just not that important to most people.  And that's OK.
• Middle age is when you choose cereal for the fiber, not the toy.-- Author Unknown  I don't know, I still like the toy, myself!  I get both!
• Do not resent growing old. Many are denied the privilege.--Author Unknown  Too many of my friends never made it to this age.  I try to remember that when  life seems so hard. It really is a choice to find the good in each and every day.  It's there.  Sometimes it's kind of hard to find, but it's there.  Keep looking!
• Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.-- Soren Kierkegaard  I've come to understand that we're not supposed to understand all of this until we reach this point in our lives.  Now we've lived enough, we've experienced enough, to understand.  There is still time left to reap the benefit of the lessons and know that...
  Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
  -- Eleanor Roosevelt