What has changed since Day #1 four years ago when I first started coming here, when I first walked the beach. Let me start with my family situation and thoughts about aging. The most important change, of course, is my mom, who died two years ago at age 101; I was turning 72. Our kids continue to do fine, the grandkids are teenagers, my husband, at age 75, is healthy, and so am I as I move toward my 74th birthday.
I notice that over the past four years I have accepted, maybe even embraced, being in my 70s. Good thing because what’s a person to do? In fact, I like my age; I like that people don’t expect as much from me. I can float along, play the ‘age card’ and reap the benefits, such as taking the seat offered to me on the crowded T into Boston.
This aging thing, however, has been a challenge because I think I’m younger than I am. Truly, literally! I’ve always looked young, acted young and thought of myself as young. It took me forever to grow up, so no surprise that I have experienced a slight development delay in settling into the meaning of old age for me. Old age? Not really. After all, I can still climb to the top of Brunelleschi’s duomo in Florence and walk the beach for a couple of hours here at the cottage. That hasn’t changed.
What has changed is my certainty of purpose, my conviction that what I am doing is right for me. I like solitude and so I take it; I believe in God and so I pray. I’m fine with who I am and what I’m doing but am still striving for humility. I don’t have to try to act grown up; I am grown up.
Being a kid at heart, I’m laughing at what I just wrote. Maybe I haven’t aged.
I notice that over the past four years I have accepted, maybe even embraced, being in my 70s. Good thing because what’s a person to do? In fact, I like my age; I like that people don’t expect as much from me. I can float along, play the ‘age card’ and reap the benefits, such as taking the seat offered to me on the crowded T into Boston.
This aging thing, however, has been a challenge because I think I’m younger than I am. Truly, literally! I’ve always looked young, acted young and thought of myself as young. It took me forever to grow up, so no surprise that I have experienced a slight development delay in settling into the meaning of old age for me. Old age? Not really. After all, I can still climb to the top of Brunelleschi’s duomo in Florence and walk the beach for a couple of hours here at the cottage. That hasn’t changed.
What has changed is my certainty of purpose, my conviction that what I am doing is right for me. I like solitude and so I take it; I believe in God and so I pray. I’m fine with who I am and what I’m doing but am still striving for humility. I don’t have to try to act grown up; I am grown up.
Being a kid at heart, I’m laughing at what I just wrote. Maybe I haven’t aged.