11/8/2009 10:00:00 AM
How to tell when you are getting older
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By Jeannine Roediger
You may wonder how you can tell if you are getting older. Well, I have a few pointers that may give you an idea if you are aging or not. One has been around a long time and it states that if you get out of bed in the morning and read the obits and you're not in them, you can look forward to another day on this earth.
Some of course are a bit more subtle. There are so many ways to see it but here are a few. If you find time going too fast and never want to speed things up to get to the next day, you are probably on the back side of forty. If you look at CEOs, TV news reporters and local store managers and professionals and they are younger than you, quite a bit younger than you, you know you're getting older.
When clerks never ask you for your Golden Buckeye Card but give you the discount anyway, that is another subtle sign that age has arrived. That goes too if you buy alcohol, as well. Clerks never card you anymore. I have to go on hearsay on this one as I don't have much experience.
As I look around my lawn I realize that many of the trees I see I planted. Now that may not seem like a sign of aging, but when I tell you they are now growing into mature trees, you can see what I mean. When you realize you've lived in the same place for over 36 years that too is a sure sign.
When you get together with friends and you recall acquaintances and events and have trouble remembering names isn't it frustrating? Oh, it's just on the tip of your tongue. Then, you stay awake at night trying to remember. About 2 a.m. when it comes to you, sleep finally arrives. By morning you still have to think of what it was you were trying to remember. Pads and pencils are a must these days, even by the side of your bed. Lists are important.
There are many benefits to aging. You finally know who you really are. Well, almost anyway. It seems we can still give ourselves some surprises on this one. Once you reach those golden years you don't really care what anyone thinks, you just do your own thing. Maybe that is the statement that the Red Hat Society is making. We are who we are, take it our leave it!
You're aging if you look at the ages of your children and realize that they are thinking life is moving along a bit fast. When you finally tally up their ages it gives you a shock because you have to add too many years to get to your own age.
Birthdays! What are they? Nothing but another one of those signs that years are going by too quickly. You know your aging if they never put the correct number of candles on the cake, it's just too many and its too hard to light them all. And, if they did put them all on and light them it may set off your smoke alarm.
You're aging if you look around your neighborhood and realize you're the patriarch. I'm not sure what happened here, but it didn't use to be that way. This really comes to the forefront when we have family reunions. On my mother's side of the family, my generation is at the top. The majority are retired and cousins are having health problems or losing their spouses. Circles are being broken.
One has to learn to age gracefully. Nowadays I have to remind myself that unasked for advice to my children will probably go unheeded. Then, I have to look back and recall how I responded to the same unasked for advice at the same age. Yip, it went unheeded, as well. We may have lived to regret some of those decisions, but it points out the fact we all have to make our own path.
We probably do things a bit slower, but we've learned to be efficiency experts so we can still do a lot, if so inclined. After all, we don't have to get up at 5 or 6 a.m. and we don't have to go to bed by 10 p.m. Our days are less scheduled, but still busy.
Along the way we've gained a lot of knowledge and hopefully a wee bit of wisdom. We can look back and say we didn't do too badly as parents and in life. We may have some regrets but we don't dwell on them. We take each day as it comes, thankfully and fully, realizing that there are more days behind us than ahead of us. If nothing else makes you appreciative of everything in every day of your life, this will.
We don't know how many days God will give us. We do know that sickness may interfere or loss of spouse or child. We know that dark days can come, but we also have learned how to deal with them. We know that this too shall pass and if it doesn't we know that is okay too. God will give us the strength to go on with what we have. We'll make the best of it and find joy in small things.
Happiness comes from within and comes regardless of age, wealth, power or social placement. Happiness makes joy and joy produces love and love makes the world a much better place, no matter what our age.
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Jeannine Roediger has lived on a family farm all her life, first as a farmer's daughter and now as a farmer's wife. She writes weekly for the Times-Bulletin and enjoys gardening, quilting, cooking, bird watching and writing.
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Posted: Monday, November 09, 2009
Article comment by:
Doreen
This article is too depressing! Aging is mandatory, growing old is NOT!
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