A milestone is a marker; the end of one thing, the beginning
of another.
I am approaching a big one and working on embracing it.
I didn’t mind at all turning forty. Fifty, to be honest,
bothered me. Suddenly 49 sounded young and 50 – old. A half century. That IS
old. It was just the months ahead of it that were troubling. By the time it hit, I had filed it under ‘Oh well, it beats the
alternative.’ It took another five years until I was ready to actually celebrate it … and that I did. I also settled very comfortably into it.
I enjoyed the entire “F Series” – forties & fifties. I
loved them. I reclaimed Me. Actually, I found Me. I had no time for that at all
in the T Series – Teens, Twenties, Thirties … three decades of getting
established, of ‘becoming’. You would hope that would be quite enough time for
that.
By the ‘F’s’ – I was.
I am. Still growing, still becoming –
that never ends. But it’s with a different perspective – a cultivated and
nurtured wisdom in knowing some of the things I have been blessed to have been
allowed to stay here long enough to garner.
And now, I approach the ‘S series’. All too quickly.Yes, ALL too
quickly. I remember my Dad on his 74th birthday saying to me: “You
won’t believe how fast it goes.” I was twenty six. Years were longer then, and although I heard him, I didn't appreciate how true his words were.
I have been less than enthusiastic about the approach of
Sixty. My friends that I went to high school
with are still teenagers in my mind; my college friends the same. In my head I
am the same age as somehow my children have gotten to be. Although my body
would beg to differ. Sixty sounds old. Although, I am sure on my 70th
birthday it will sound young, just as 50 does to me now.
Sixty is getting too close to the edge, to the end. Brian’s
Dad left us at 60; my Mom was 62; Brian’s Mom was 69. The sixties haven’t been very kind to our family. I thought too of my siblings who never got to see 50, or 20 – or some of them even 10. Life sometimes has not been very kind to our family.
Then I thought of my Dad, who bought a farm at 62 and started
a whole new life. And his sister Ruth, who celebrates her 96th
birthday the day after tomorrow – not only with excellent health, but with a
vibrantly rich and full life. We're having a pajama party for her birthday. She would think that 60 is still a child.
I have switched gears. I am going to EMBRACE 60. I’m excited
about 60. If I say that often enough, I will convince myself.
What I have determined to do is to unload some stuff that I
have been dragging along with me through my Ts & Fs. The Ss are going to
call for a lighter load.
I have numbered the calendar.
I have 200 days to unpack.
I have 200 days to unpack.
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