Today I spent the day giving the house a much needed fall cleaning, putting up fall decorations, lighting apple spice candles, opening windows and giving gratitude for each blessing I touched as I moved and dusted objects throughout my home. At noontime we had gotten word that a friend just delivered a beautiful baby girl. I kept her and her new little family in my prayers as I went about my work. Consequently I was away from my phone until dinnertime.
After my shower, I settled into my chair to see what happened in my world while I was so busy. There was a sad email about a very dear friend being diagnosed with cancer. It took the wind out my sails, but I still needed to go upstairs and put the clean sheets on the bed. While rounding the corners and tucking in the top sheet, I thought about both sets of news I received today and how each family is spending this day on opposite ends of the spectrum. I thought back to a few hours earlier when I gently dusted off my serenity prayer hanging on the wall. I remembered what I do during my meditation each morning – just look at God with my eyes closed and let the world and all it’s circumstances fall away because there is only one thing in my eyesight – what God wants me to do or be involved in each day.
I connected the dots of my day. I can’t control situations with friends and family and the faits that befall them each day. I can only ask God to go and be close to them. Ask Him to go sit on their shoulder in both the happy and sad times.
After making the beds, I went back downstairs to check some more emails. Further down the list was a fwd from another dear friend. She knows I don’t fwd and I know she doesn’t either, so when I get one from her, I open it and usually do end up sending it on. I really needed this one in the light of all my news today about lives beginning and ending. For those of us on the flip side of fifty and dealing with aging, this is priceless. It fine tunes our attitudes and outlook so well I feel compelled to share it with you. Enjoy – and find joy.
As I’ve aged, I’ve become kinder to myself, and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend.
I have seen too many dear friends leave this world, too soon;
before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging. Whose business is it, if I choose to read, or play, on the computer, until 4 AM, or sleep until noon?
I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 50, 60 &70 ‘s,
and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love, I will. I will walk the beach, in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body,
and will dive into the waves, with abandon, if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set.
They, too, will get old. I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten.
And, I eventually remember the important things.
Sure, over the years, my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break, when you lose a loved one,
or when a child suffers, or even when somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But, broken hearts are what
give us strength, and understanding, and compassion. A heart never broken, is pristine, and sterile, and will never know the joy of being imperfect. I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.
As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong. I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be.
And I shall eat dessert every single day (if I feel like it).
And so, as another day goes by, today I thank God for letting me turn sixty, I promise to live this year with joy and peace and grace, I will not give over one more minute to lamenting over what could’ve been, I will revel in the present and enjoy each moment from here on in, and…I have written.
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