"Pity Party--A Place To Visit But Not A Place to Live"

I stood staring at the emerald green blades of grass, sprinkled with dew like loose diamonds carelessly tossed from a velvet jewel bag.  And from somewhere, many years ago, came the urge to walk barefoot through this display.  I remove my house slippers and gently step onto Mother Nature's carpet. It was cool from the night. The brilliant sun of morning had not yet heated it.
I wiggled my toes and just stood there taking in the moment, remembering such mornings from my days as a child.  Is this where we go when we age?  Back to days when life was simple and nothing hurt?  Are we blessed with those memories, so fresh after all these years, so that when walking from
one room to the next and forgetting why we went there is not as traumatic as it would seem?  Afterall I can still remember the smell of the cafeteria from elementary school and the feel of the first real coldsnap of late Fall on my bare legs covered only by a short drill team skirt. And now I chide myself for waxing toward self-pity because I'm aging.  I tell myself, "Shame on you!  You have been given a chance to age and to remember.  A chance to talk about how things were when you were young, with friends who remember exactly what you are talking about!  Shame on you for indulging yourself in a pity party!"

I write this and post it here because I know that this very experience is not unique to me.  I am fairly certain that all my contemporaries have at sometime or another gone down this dark rabbit hole.   However, we can admit it or not, indulge in it or not, or absolutely wallow in the mire of it, if we so choose, but the fact remains that WE ARE AGING. And that in and of itself is a gift.  And the pity party may be a temporary place to go but, it is no place to dwell for the long term.  Aging is a double-edged sword.  It cuts both ways!  On somedays we are blessed and on somedays we are cursed. I think perhaps my greatest fear of aging is not the decline of my physical body, nor is it that I fear losing all my cognitive abilities.  More, it is the fear of becoming irrelevant.  As I look back, I realize that I have been a force all my life.  I have done things and said things and written things that have made a difference.  Not on a grand scale but in the realm of my existence, I have done what good I could do.  I don't want that to end, not yet.  So I purge my mind today with this and get it out of my system, because tomorrow there are still things to do and people to do for that brings me a measure of joy.  And I refuse to let little bits of daily joy be overrun by a galloping pity party of one day. Not now and not ever.

Thanks for listening and if I can ever do the same for you, do not hesitate to ask.  I have a strong shoulders and big ears. When we shine a light into the closet at night, the scary things go away! Thanks for being my light!