How Old Would You Be If You Didn't Know How Old you Are?
I don't claim that this is an original question, but I find it to be an interesting one. It came up in a conversations with friends recently and I have been wondering about it since. I talk a lot about how much I love being a grandmother, but I sometimes find it hard to believe that I am actually old enough to have been a grandmother for nine years this month. I've already outlived my mother by nearly a dozen years, and because she died at 51, there was a time when I'm sure I never expected to reach the age I am now.
I feel lucky that, as yet, there's not much that I want to do that I can't do because of my age. As far as how old I feel, there are times when it comes to things like being as mature as I should be about some things I feel like I am about 12. When it comes to my attitude about some other things, like little girls wearing sexy clothes or teenage boys wearing their pants around their hips with their underwear showing, I'm probably nearer to 70.
The common thing that we all said in my conversation with my friends was that we all still feel like we have always felt on the inside. The outside, however, has it's own tale to tell. Sometimes when I am shopping with my daughters and we pass a mirror in a store, I feel a little shocked that I actually look older than they look.
I can't help thinking that doing our best to stay young on the inside can't be anything but a benefit to the outside of ourselves. These people say it well:
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
Abraham Lincoln
There is still no cure for the common birthday.
John Glenn
If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart.
The spirit shoul never grow old.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Age is an issue of mind over matter, if you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come into contact with a new idea.
Pearl Buck
I can honestly and maybe gratuitously say that I feel young for my age, at least young at heart.
How old would you be if you didn't know how old your are?
Love the thoughtful question...my Mom is amazing and wears her age so well. She always has. She taught me that age means nothing but living a full life does.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to pick..I would say permanent 31...established, happy, and afraid of nothing at that age.
And Eleanor Roosevelt has such greqt quotes!
love this post - you're so good and one of my favorites to read. i am 38 but i feel about 9-12 yrs of age b/c i find the dumbest stuff funny and i have always said i don't mind getting older but i definitely mind looking older! i am trying to age gracefully but it is HARD!
ReplyDeleteI think I've always felt older than I really am. I'm not sure what that says about me. I'd like to think I'm "young at heart", but maybe I'm more of an "old soul".
ReplyDeleteI love this post, and it's so true, the older we get, we still feel the same inside, although the outside tells a different story. I have given you an award on my blog. I hope you visit and accept it and pass it along. See you.
ReplyDeleteWonderful post! I'm turning 50 in December but I still feel young inside of myself...
ReplyDeleteThis was in an e-mail forward I got today. It made me think of your post -
ReplyDeleteOld Age, I decided, is a gift...
I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother!), but I don't agonize over those things for long...
I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less
gray hair or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become more kind to
myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend.
I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be
extravagant.
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 and sleep until noon ?
I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of old, 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 haircould 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.
So, yes, 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).
Joanna,
ReplyDeleteLoved that e-mail you received and posted. Makes me feel FREE to be myself.
Great post and so very true...there are times I think about how old I am and I am genuinely surprised!
ReplyDeleteHi Jeanie -- found you through Betty!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post! I think about this sometimes too. I'm 52. Some days I still feel like I'm 16. I think in my HEART I am forever 20! But this old body (mostly by my own fault) sometimes feels 90! A few years ago I had lost 60 pounds and was exercising regularly -- and I was bouncing all over the land climbing and jumping and rolling around on the floor and I really DID feel like I was 16 again! But now I've gained it all back - and with the weight came back EVERY ailment I had before! So now I have to do it all over again... and will I EVER learn to KEEP it off? Only God knows! I sure HOPE I do! I don't think we should concern ourselves too much with what we LOOK like... but we certainly should FEEL well enough to do the tasks that God puts before us!