Ageing

 

Yesterday I went from being old to middle age. My daughter went from middle age to young as did many of my friends. At least we did with the chart above.

I am not sure about the term underage. It sounds more like you have minus years or you are sitting under a table.

It still shocks me that I'm my age. I hear about something in the 70s, 80, 90s and realize it didn't happen last week. The latest was the French stations saying singer/songwriter/actor and iconoclast Serge Gainsbourg died 30 years ago. I would have said ten max.

Often I see someone that looks really old to learn they are younger than me.

Age is relative, physically and mentally.

My body tells me I can't do things I used to do. My mind says shut up, I'll do what I want maybe just less of it.

Over the years I've had parts of my body chipped away. I don't miss my breast. It wanted to kill me so it had to go.

Many of my high school classmates have passed away with only one dying of battle causes--he went down in a flaming plane over Vietnam. Different accidents and illnesses felled the others along life's journey.

Years ago I had a professional photo taken and I thought I was beginning to look like my mother. Eventually I morphed into my grandmother. I don't remember what my great grandmother looked like. She was bedridden and died when I was two. 

I used to look at a photo of my grandmother when she was young and beautiful, although she didn't think of herself as attractive. She was. Inside. Outside. There were other photos. I wondered if we have many faces on our heads that peel off as the years pass. Some of us still look like our younger selves: others seem to have a face transplant.

I've enjoyed almost all of the years I've lived. I have accomplished all that I wanted to do, not just when or how. I found my soulmate at 71, something I never expected to happen. The few bumps made me appreciate the beautiful fields and sky even more. Those bumps made me stronger and taught me lessons I didn't know I needed to learn.

Now that I have been thrust back into middle age I have four more months to enjoy it before I rejoin the old people, the people of the 3rd age as the French call it. Then I will enjoy each day forward not caring how you classify me in years.