As I sit here, my thoughts go to how my life has turned out so far. I am stunned and more than surprised at the life I now lead. Things have changed, people have changed and I have changed in ways I never could have anticipated. I guess that's how it is with life, huh? There's that "box of chocolates" philosophy-we never know what we're going to get.
I am walking through my fifty-seventh year on this earth. That in itself is a mind-boggler, considering mine was the generation that was never going to trust anyone over thirty! Somehow I never thought much about what getting older was going to be like. And, if I bent my brain to it at all, I am pretty sure that I thought it was going to be boring and gray. Well, I must say that beneath my tinted locks, my tresses are now gray, but my life is anything but a black-and-white kind of world.
My world is filled with the colors of creation and a Robin of which I never dreamed. I make presentations from a stage now. I write books and newsletters. I eat ice cream for dinner. This is a far cry from my younger days where a kind of "herd" mentality dictated my actions at any given point on an age-time continuum.
There were teen years of working so desperately to fit in. I was always trying to catch up with the nose that was running away with my face in those days, as I decided what I really wanted to do with my hair. I'm not even going to go to the boy "issues" of those years. It is funny and poignant for me to look back and realize that I actually thought of those poor pimpled pranksters as men!
College, marriage and motherhood were years also prescribed and organized. As I eyed the mark toed by all those around me, there were targets to hit and things to accomplish. Never did I want to admit, especially to myself, that I held very few of these "marks" in much appreciation. This was what I was supposed to do. And, being a tractable kind of gal, I simply followed the herd.
Then,with children pretty much raised and a marriage done, I started to look to my life as an uncharted adventure. There were really no more "must do's" or "get done's" that were expected of me. I got to start calling the shots. And, at first this was rather wobbly territory-rather shocked the shirt out of me!
I am delighted to report that the shock has now worn off completely. And, these later years of living are proving to be the most amazing of my life. I have my feet gracefully balanced on my path with joy and laughter, and haven't a clue where the herd is at all!
By Robin Korth
Insights On Aging
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