Good bye 58

I always thought it would be an interesting thing to talk about each year of life as it happened. Unfortunately, I thought of this idea when I was leaving age 58, like TODAY.


My assumption is that people who write their own biographies must be tracking their daily drama in a better fashion than I, or at least have tremendously good memories. My memory is very bad and I am not exxagerating one bit of badness with that comment. In order to recall what I have written previously on this blog, for instance, I must review prior to a new post. Pretty depressing, believe me, and since it is from years and years ago I have had this problem, it is no less annoying today than it was yesterday! I should be used to it, but alas, I am shocked daily at it's far reaching implications.

I would love to review here what I enjoyed, hated, learned, or experienced from age 58, throughout the year of 2008-2009. Loving to blog and write out my thoughts would be so much nicer to read and more interesting than what my short term memory allows. Makes living in the moment take on new meaning!

I am surprised to be headed toward the next (6Th) decade. I was sure that mine would be an early departure from this earth, and by today's standards of longevity it still may be. My dear friend Katherine Thorn, who died last fall at the age of 102 may have thought similarly, but when I spoke with her about older living about 10 years ago, she said,"I am just as surprised as anyone" to be alive. Maybe we each will be surprised when we wake up and discover the God of the Universe looking at us, answering all of our inquiries of life in that one glance.



Nevertheless,(oh I do like that word!)my last year of life was interestingly boring. No dramatic events stick out in my mind, rather a series of age-related happenings. I had several friends lose their parents, and that is definitely sobering. No matter if we want to think about our age or not, it means our generation is becoming next in the circle of life and death, we are the nearest ones to the grave. Perhaps that is why the Mid-Life Crisis escalates the more that deaths hit closer to home.

Since I am dying anyhow, have I really lived well? Am I seriously a person who thinks God holds the answers to life and death in His Hands, or has that been a front for the real person underneath? The person underneath the skin begins to emerge, at first timidly, then in full force popping to the surface and making some dramatic choices. Since the grave is closing in rather rapidly, my flight or fight mechanism engages with little warning.

I have seen and been impacted by some of these choices first hand and with much interest have been observing others over the last 8 years. My husband, for instance, chose to leave. Leave, as in, vamoose, gone, disappeared. Eight years of trying to forget the pain leaves me able to chuckle about his losses, not mine. Now that is God's grace right there!

Other choices my friends and acquaintances have made surround me: go back to school, get a really nice,{translation : expensive and flashy} new car,live in another place part-time while maintaining the same relationship, golfing more, working more intensely, terminating the church experience, beginning the church experience, adopting a new child, ignoring the ones I have, blaming these same children(after all if they were 'better' wouldn't I be less stressed and old feeling?), making my garden way prettier than your garden....oh, believe me, the list goes on and on if you are watching carefully!!





Where was I ? Oh, I remember now, after I reread this thing...choices and aging and here I am about to turn 59.

I choose to have the woman emerging be consistent with the woman who God has allowed to live 58 years on this really interesting earth. I am passionate about loving my children and now grandchildren well. I am trying to figure them all out as they age, so that I can adjust my loving them to meet their changing needs, and that has been a huge challenge for me. These little people are having little people and they do not need me in the same way they used to. They tell me they do not need me at all, but I just say OK, and know that is not true. They simply need me to be the consistent , God centered, wounded yet limping forward woman they think I am.

I still hate missing any birthday, anniversary, celebratory anything occasion for anyone. I still take pictures of them when they are mad at me, happy with me, or looking their worst. I still hate gardening unless it is on my own terms, i.e. ignore the weeds and focus on the flowers, then take their pictures a hundred times!! I still go to church and remind them to prioritize it as well. I still react before I engage my brain, my mouth and voice escalating as my passion increases. This is still considered yelling by all of these many children, much to my annoyance. I still want to love God more, serve Him better, share His love more consistently. I still love dogs, cats, fish and creatures that are sad or lonely, including children. I still would adopt more children if one stood at my door and said 'will you?".




Am I in Mid-Life Crisis Mode? I think perhaps only God can determine that answer since He alone knows the moment of my death. However, based on my observations and experiences, it is a safe assumption for me to treat leaving 58 as if it were my last year. I will be on this earth loving my babies who call me Grammy, and my kids who call me Mom, for a very short time compared to an eternal life with God. The catechism says "What is the chief end of man"" and the answer is, as even my sweet Evie knows well, "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever".

In the meantime, year 58 was wonderful! It turns out that my underneath the skin person is indeed the same person that is on top of my skin. I still want friends and family surrounding me and loving me and I want God to be proud of me. I still want a better camera and a more obedient dog.



Well, about the dog...maybe age 59.