CELEBRATE AGING

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”—Madeleine L’Engle

- Mary Boutieller

Happy New Year to one and all— so full of promise and the feeling that we can begin again! Always in January, I tend to reflect upon the past year to see what I can glean from my experiences. I look over my old wall calendar to see what filled up my life and ponder all of it. Individually and collectively, we have seen our share of triumphs and tragedy, love and loss, joy and sadness. I wonder what we should do with all of this accumulated energy and experience? Do we shove it under the rug in hopes that we never have to do “that” again? Do we journal about it, try to incorporate it, ignore it, learn from it, move toward or away from it? Do we see it as a momentary experience that has no significant meaning, or is each moment in our lives important in some way?

Lately, I’ve been hearing myself say “as we get older” an awful lot! It both speaks of wisdom gained and sounds really old, like something my mother might have said. A small knee injury of mine that would have gone unnoticed in my 20s is now in it’s fourth week of healing. Healing seems to take longer “as we get older.”