How often I meet people who fight the fact they are growing old.

Here are some lines on ageing, some borrowed and some my own:

‘Old age is a gift. I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometimes despair over my body – but I don’t agonize over it for long.’

‘I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I’ve aged, I’ve become my own friend. I don’t get angry with myself for eating that extra piece of cake. I am entitled to overeat, to be messy, to be extravagant.

Whose business is it if I choose to read until 4 am, and sleep until noon? I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 50’s and 60ies, and if I at the same time wish to weep over a lost love, I will. I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten – and I eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect!

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong.’

I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be.

For the first time in my life, I don’t have to have a reason to do the things I want to do. If I want to write all day, lie on the couch and watch old movies or TV serials for hours or don’t want to go to the mall or a movie, I have earned that right.

I can be a bit selfish without feeling guilty.

I sometimes feel sorry for the young. They face a far different world than I knew growing up, where we feared the law, respected the old, the flag, our country and where God existed in every part of our lives. We never felt the need to use filthy language in order to express ourselves.

They too will grow old someday.

But today I am grateful to have been born when I was, and am now enjoying every moment of my growing old!

Now don’t you think we all should enjoy just ‘growing old?’

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