Becoming Myself

          

"It's not the years, it's the mileage." --  Indiana Jones

           

So the latest birthday behind me, candles extinguished, love shared with friends and family and now I'm 68 years old.  It's a number that would have horrified me when I was younger, but one of my discoveries through these decades is that it is just a number.  Sure, I've entered what some call the "Golden Years," but our friend Ackie calls the "Medical Years."  Yep, there's a touch of arthritis, the "heartbreak of psoriasis" (as the TV commercials used to call it) and other assorted anomalies of the body.  That said, I wouldn't be any other age than the one to which I wake up each morning.

            [As a quick aside, I need to put this blogging thing in some perspective.  I don't write out of a sense that I have any particular wisdom to offer, but just because I've always been verbal and enjoy writing a lot.  I share the blog because any writer likes to be published in some form.  There's a lot of other writing I do that doesn't fit this venue, but maybe someday I'll do something with that, too.]

            Now back to this aging thing.  I like the age I am as well as any that has gone before.  It seems wise to do so since there is really no alternative, but I've never spent a great deal of time wishing for the past.  If I could have more time with loved ones who are no longer here, I would absolutely want to do that.  I certainly would ask them many more questions about their lives and I would take notes to remember.  Having no chance of that, I cherish the memories and realize how lucky I have been to know and love those who have been part of my life.

            The mileage has been instructive, sometimes fun and joyful, sometimes sad and disturbing.  I have learned from all of it, sometimes forgotten lessons that had to be relearned, but always have been affected by the experience.  I've learned enough to know I'll be learning all my life and that makes me happy because curiosity has driven my life's journey.

            Thanks to my parents Billy and Frances for giving me the gift of reading.  Books have taken me all over the world and into times before I was born and a future we can only imagine.  Authors have inspired me to try new places, not to fear taking chances and, of course, they inspired me to express myself with the words I learned to love so young.

            My sister Pat, about whom I've written many times, set the odometer of my life turning when she allowed me to accompany her on her own teenage adventures.  She taught me to drive in the sand dunes and state parks around Albany, Georgia where we grew up.  She neglected to share with Mama and Daddy the story of how I got the 1948 Chevy stuck in the sand and we had to get help to get it out.  She prevaricated when Daddy wanted to know how the car's bumper got dented, avoiding telling him that I drove into a pine tree at Chehaw State Park. I suspect he wondered how I learned how to drive without his help, but he agreed to take me to the Driver's License Bureau when I turned 16 with one caveat.  Though he had never ridden in the car with me driving, he said that if I could get him there without incident, he would support my getting the license.  I did and he did. 

            Not every part of the journey has been smooth sailing.  I made misjudgments, as most of us do.  Luckily those cost me less than I gained.  A first marriage that went awry gave me the gift of a cherished son. The second marriage gave me a husband who has loved me and forgiven my foibles for more than three decades while loving our son and parenting him with love and guidance.  Some choices that seem so right prove to be wrong.  Sometimes that which seems a devastating loss turns out to be a lesson that heals and nurtures. 

            There are days when my curiosity and thirst for life create anxiety.  I don't want to miss anything.  I can never seem to get enough traveling done to soothe my wanderlust.  Other days I find the comfort of home so appealing that I can't imagine leaving for even a short while.  But this, I believe, is life, that seesaw between desires yet unmet and the satisfaction of having found serenity in one's nest.

            I have few regrets.  None of them has to do with what I've missed.  The only things I rue are the times I let someone down.  Some of those probably happened without my realizing another's disappointment.  I'm convinced that the true gift of experience and aging for me is this awareness that I have had -- and I continue to enjoy -- a life in which I'm learning every day.  How can I regret a moment when the joys so far outweigh the sorrows?  I cannot.

            So I celebrate becoming 68.  The number is insignificant.  The journey that brought me here is what I cherish.   I look forward to whatever lies ahead and plan to embrace each day as it comes. 

Photo by Mike Lumpkin