Six decades

What a difference six decades can make in one's face, huh? Hair, complexion, the whole enchilada. However, the one thing I notice is that my smile is the same! Our bodies do tend to hang in there for a long time if we take care of them. Eyes crinkle up more than they used to, now they need glasses; those teeth have eaten quite a few meals in more than sixty years, but since I see a dentist regularly they are hanging in there, even if they require crowns and root canals and other unpleasantnesses, not to mention money.

Today I'd like to talk a bit about getting older. I've heard it said that aging is not for sissies, and whoever said it wasn't kidding. There are so many things that just keep on deteriorating, including the aging of our friends and family, with the loss of another one now and then. It's part of the process, and it's one part I hadn't considered when thinking of getting older. The four Seniors who carpooled together on our hike last week each had a new ailment to share, and I thought of the conversations I overheard when I was a kid, never guessing that I would be there some day, commiserating with my cronies over this and that part beginning to break down or wear out.

One of the resources that I use to make myself feel better about getting older are the blogs of some of my dear friends: people whose faces I have never seen in person, probably won't ever meet, but you just never know. My blogging friends are almost all retired or close to it. Tomorrow, I'll be meeting a Bag Lady in Waiting: Linda Myers, who lives a few miles away from my favorite place to skydive: Skydive Snohomish. She says she's not going to try it, but you never know. I made my first jump never realizing that I would end up with so many of them under my belt.

But it's sad knowing that this is a sport that, although I still love it, is no longer something I intend to keep doing much longer. This is my last season, or next to last. I've thought it would be cool to keep on skydiving until I am 70, which is only another year and a half. However, it doesn't make much sense to me to keep going until I have an injury that I have to deal with. I want to stop skydiving on my terms, so every jump I make is potentially my last one. I figure I'll know when it's time, and I feel that time coming.

Another favorite blog was introduced to me by Linda at A Slower Pace. She has decided to stop blogging, which saddens me, but then again, why keep on doing something that isn't giving you what you want out of it? She wrote about a blog that I now read every day, with something good that I learn from it, or a link that I follow to another exciting place. It's a professional blog written by Ronni Bennett at Time Goes By. She has a regular staff of elders who research and write about everything that interests me as an elder myself. Ronni says she was forcibly retired in 2005 because of age discrimination. She is an inspiration to me, every day, and she's already passed her seventieth year and tells it like it is.

Today I was out walking with more than a dozen women of all ages. We meet at 8:00 am on Saturday, rain or shine, and walk with Cindy, a retired race walker who has taught me how to quicken my pace and walk brisk enough to really feel it. Then I went over to the YMCA and swam a half mile. Strolling around in the sunshine afterwards, I just had to give thanks for the life that I have, the health still moving me forward, and scouting out what's ahead.
:-)