Well now, I’ll be 79 in a few short days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that getting older is—how shall I put it—okay. Not as glamorous as they made it sound when I was six and wanted to be a cowboy with a shiny belt buckle, but not as grim as they warn you when the knees start popping louder than the popcorn.
Wiser? Maybe. Or maybe just slower at making the same mistakes—takes me longer to get to them. The good thing about aging is it trims the nonsense out of your schedule. You stop trying to impress the wrong people and start enjoying the right silences.
Someone asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year. I thought about it for a long second, looked out the window, saw the light falling just right across the old maple tree, and said, “Another one.”
That’s it. Another sunrise, another cup of coffee, another laugh that sneaks out before the body knows what it’s doing. Another story to tell, another chance to be kind, another evening with someone who knows your middle name and your bad habits.
You learn, at this age, that life doesn’t owe you more—it just offers you one more. One more morning to stretch and groan your way upright. One more chance to look at this bewildering, beautiful world and whisper, “Alright then, let’s see what you’ve got.”
That’s all I have to say; I will say no more.
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