Beginnings and endings, I’ve been thinking about both today.
- A friend just announced the arrival of a grandchild—a beginning.
- My mother was dead before she reached the age I am as I type this—an ending.
- A potential client, in the middle of negotiation over an exciting new project, just announced that he is cancelling the project. His company is filing for bankruptcy—an ending before a beginning.
- Friends retire and begin collecting Social Security benefits when they are my age—a beginning, of sorts.
How old is “old?” Does anyone feel their real age? Not in my family!
- My grandmother had to move when her landlady died and the heirs sold the house. She didn’t want to move into a senior housing complex, because “it’s full of old people!” Most of those “old people” were at least 10 years younger than she was, but she didn’t feel old.
- My mother didn’t feel old in the last years of her life, either. In spite of serious health problems, her mind was still vital. She read newspapers and books, lots of both. She took a child-like joy in learning, in exploring ideas. She discussed what she read with everyone who came to visit her. So, in spite of cancer and loss of mobility, she seemed so much younger than the other people in her nursing home.
I’m 63 and I’m still wondering what I’m going to be when I grow up. I don’t feel old. That is, my MIND doesn’t feel old. My body sometimes has a different opinion. But, in my head, I’m still a kid with my whole life ahead of me.
I think George Sand got it right:
“Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age, and to imagine right up to the brink of death that life is only beginning. I think that is the only way to keep adding to one’s talent, and one’s inner happiness.” ~ George Sand
