Things I like about being 66

 

 

I was riding home from dinner with friends last night in the spring dusk and began composing a list in my head. It was a list of reasons I enjoy being 66. Here they are:

• It is fun to have friends with whom I have a long history, people I have known for 40 years or more. 
• It is fun to look at old pictures and feel like I am part of many past eras. The past is real. This thought because of two recent experiences: ( 1) being given an old picture of my daughter and other children from the 70's and (2) being "interviewed" last night by phone by a 16 year old in upstate New York about the cold war and the partition of Germany - something about which I know little, except through the eyes of a father who was intimately involved in German history.  
• I get to lecture young people every once in a while. This is a privilege which can easily be abused, of course. It should be used in moderation. But occasionally I just let loose and deliver a little rant. Justifiable of course.
• I really do know what is going on at least some of the time.
• I have full medical insurance for the first time in my life. I have managed to have a work history which never included "benefits." I didn't realize I would like having some insurance, but I do.
• Changes in feelings are less overwhelming. I have finally caught on to the truism that feelings come and go. Sometimes you just ride them out.
• I like being the mother of a grown child (and also a grandmother, of course). These are both relatively new and totally enjoyable relationships. 
• I have been gardening in the same place for about 25 years and I can tell. Every spring good friends reappear just outside my doorstep. 

        

 

Comments

[Karen Reimann]

Thank you Peggy for the newest entry. I particularly like this entry as someone who really is not afraid of growing older (although for the first time in my life, I do see a milestone - 50 - looming on my horizon and find it daunting.

I have to chuckle though when I read that about it being new having a grown child! That's been going on for almost 20 years too!!

I just spent a lovely afternoon weeding and I practically know every weed as well as plant that can stay. I just had a long conversation with a burnet that is a child of one I had ripped out a few years earlier because it had chosen a not-so-good location to take root. I reassured this burnet that it can stay there and join the fun of growing in my garden!

Karen