On Turning 80

The fact that I have been working on this blog for months interests me, along with another fact…that I am now considering my life in terms of decades rather than just years, even though I could have been doing this already for a number of decades. A scattering of years seems indeterminate, but counting decades sucks you right into serious accountability of time. Equally daunting is the awareness that I now obviously have much more physical past than future to consider. Time seems to be speeding up as the years begin to clump together more. Do I fear what eventually lies ahead? I may have once, but not now. I am no longer searching for who I am; I’ve figured enough out. What I do notice lately is that I have many days when I look in the mirror and ask, “How in the hell did this happen?” I haven’t decided whether turning 80 is an accomplishment… or a shock!

Perspective.....

I have lived long enough now to have created a history of my own, and from it I have gained a thing called perspective. I have discovered that the gaps between my successes and failures have narrowed quite a bit. In some ways they have almost evened out. Don’t mistake me, though; the genuine loves have never dimmed, and the great losses still ache, but most everything else seems not quite as important as it once did. The job that didn’t pan out is just a memory, and the man I thought I’d never forget I can barely remember.

Walk with us...

I know this much. If the people who come into our lives do not get to be themselves, we will eventually be very lonely. Others cannot possibly be who we want them to be, and they cannot possibly fill the empty holes in us. They were never meant to. They walk with us…and we with them…along the multiple paths our lives will take.

A work in progress...

When I look in the mirror at the face I did not plan on, I ask myself: Am I growing old? Then I remember a current TV ad that asks: Doesn’t growing old mean living longer? This is a really, really good question. On the other hand, growing old is an established condition. Not much we can do about that…but growing old-er is a work in progress, open ended, not fully established, still malleable. Given my choices, I think I’ll opt for the latter.  And maybe, as Dr. Christiane Northrup suggests, I can become an "ageless goddess!"

So…80’s here.... Nailed it.... On to 90.


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