Ticket 2 Ride

When you are ten years old, 64 seems unimaginable. Grandparents are that age. Hey wait, I’m a grandparent! Impossible!!

I’m nine months into my 64th year. What a year it’s been. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. From the pandemic to the loss of a loved one to establishing life as a single to contemplating retirement, I rarely know which side is up.

The Beatles aged, helping us to understand that life over age 30 is possible. Sir Paul is a spry 79 orbits around the Sun. Sure, I’d love to be thirty again, but I’d miss my third act.

How many of us imagined being 64? I could not comprehend it. As a kid, we never fully understand being that age or the person we would become. Many of our childhood friends never make it to this age. Life has something else in line for them.

Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four

I’ve had learn how to live again at age 64. It was a challenge, but I’m taking a day at a time. Life throws some huge detours at us. Sixty-four is not the end of the world, in fact, it can be a new starting point. Sixty-four used to seem ancient to a kid who bare was in double digits.

Birthdays celebrate another layer of life, no different from the tree in my backyard growing an additional ring. If you cut me open – wait a minute, don’t do that, bad example. Figuratively speaking, my life is a growth of layers, knowledge and experience. Of course, it is easier to add to my “trunk” too.

Overall, 64 is okay. Certainly better than the alternative, as they say. Is age just a number? It depends on how you live and how you think. Ignoring your age and the changes that come is not the answer. Adapt and move on. When I started blood pressure medicine, it was the first maintenance medicine for me, and it bothered me to realize I might have to take it the rest of my life. I wanted my 30 year old body. Ha, like that is a possibility.

There is no fountain of youth, but you can swim in the pool of positive attitude. It is not quite the swimming pool in the film, Cocoon, but you would be surprised the impact attitude has one’s health. The attitude to dwell on problems, changes and what you do not have, can be all-consuming. Nothing changes if you do not get out of your chair or off the sofa, start moving toward a goal, and greet the day instead of hiding from it. Attitude is the fuel to move you from one place to another.

As I have gotten older, my world has not slowed down, but I have taken time to look around and notice things I have missed or not fully appreciated. There is a tendency to look backwards and reflect, since most of your life is in the rearview mirror. Regrets are only valuable if there is something ahead you can change. If it does not help how you live in the future, cut it lose. Your bucket is one size, fill it with positive things.

I am hoping that someone will still need me.