Sixty???

Something happened a couple of months ago that I am still wondering how on earth it happened.  It has left me pondering many things and contemplating the future like nothing else ever has.  What is this momentous happening?  I turned Sixty years old.  SIXTY!!!!!!  That seems absolutely impossible.  I still feel like a kid!  How can I possibly be 6-0 years old???? But no matter how many times I subtract 1956 from 2016, I still come up with 60.  The calendar is not wrong.

The only other birthday that has ever rocked my world even a bit was Twenty.  For some odd reason it bothered me when I realized I was no longer a teenager.  Thirty didn’t bother me, neither did Forty or Fifty.  But there is something about Sixty that has really gotten my attention!  I think it was when I realized Sixty is just ten years from Seventy and knowing how fast ten years goes by.  I may not consider myself a senior citizen yet, but I am fast approaching it.  Maybe it’s that I’ve had little hints my body is starting to not work quite as well as it did in years gone by.  Nothing big, small things, like a knee that doesn’t like going up steps, feet that REALLY hurt at the end of everyday, the extra effort and thought it takes to climb into the bed of a pickup or a big truck, and feeling just a touch of fear and taking a moment to get a good hold on the handrail before I start down our basement steps.

Whatever it is, it has made me think and wonder.  Wonder about the future.  What does it hold?  What will I face in the next couple decades?  Will I lose Mark?  Losing their spouse is something many people face as they enter their later years.  We have so much fun right now, taking care of our “little farm” and raising our own food.  But as knees and backs and hearts age more, will we still be able to keep doing the things we like to do?  Whenever we struggle to do something, but succeed in getting it done we often say to the other one, someday I won’t be able to do that, but today wasn’t that day!

Honestly though, it has made me wonder even more about the past.  Have I cherished life enough?  Have I taken the time to do what is important?  Have I left kindness and compassion in my wake or have I been too preoccupied in my own little world to notice others struggles?  Do my kids and grandkids know just how very much I love them and that they are the biggest blessing God could have ever given me?  And speaking of God, am I a disappointment to Him?  Have I done anything that even matters in the sight of eternity?  What more should I do?  How much time have I wasted on things that do not matter?

I guess it definitely is not a bad thing to have a birthday come around that makes me stop and count my days, makes me want to make the most of the ones I have left, makes me think about how I am living my life and want to correct whatever I am doing wrong.  Now I need to get past the pondering and get to the doing!  Someday I may not be able to do the things I still want and need to do, but today is not that day!

Reaping the Rewards

The other day I was touched to see a Facebook post where a daughter congratulated her Mom and Dad on their 38th anniversary.  She said she knew “it hasn’t always been easy, but I sure am glad they stuck it out!”  I stopped to ponder the deep meaning in her sweet message.  Her Dad was a good friend of Mark’s and they got married just a year after we did.  We were witness to some of the struggles their young marriage went through.  In all honesty, they were not just  run-of-the mill issues all relationships have.  Most marriages would have been over.  Most wives would have said “I’m done,” on more than one occasion.  But she didn’t.  She stayed with her husband through it all and her commitment to her vows paid off.  She saw her husband grow up and change into a good husband and father to their four children.  And now, she is living the rewards.  She doesn’t go home to an empty house, she goes home to someone who loves her.  She doesn’t eat alone, she gets to eat and visit with someone she has history with, someone who has walked with her for 38+ years.  As old age doesn’t seem all that far away, she gets to feel the warmth of her husband’s arm around her as she sleeps.   When her kids come home, they get to come home to both Mom and Dad together.  Their family is intact.  What a beautiful thing.

I know blog posts make it seem like everything is rosy and always has been in the author’s life.  We write about the good things in our lives.  But of course the truth is, no life is struggle free.  No marriage is pain-free.  Mark and I have most definitely had our issues over the years.  But the “D” word never entered our minds.  I can’t sit here and claim that it was because we were special.  The fact of the matter is, I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do if I would have left Mark.  When you have six children and your only job is keeping books for your husband’s business, it tends to keep you where you are at, thank goodness!

If a young couple sticks it out, I fully believe they will be richly rewarded.  Once the kids are raised and it’s just the two of you, I feel God blesses you with a life that feels like an ongoing second honeymoon.  Both of us have grown over the years, we have both learned what is important and what isn’t.  We are just naturally wiser from the years of living we have behind us.  We have realized the things that used to drive us nuts about each other weren’t worth giving a second thought about.  In fact more times than not, I’ve seen that it was me and my behavior that caused the issue.  Being older, and especially the fact that Mark has a serious health issue with his heart, makes me realize that we won’t always have each other.  One of us will more than likely lose the other and have to learn to live without the other.  That knowledge just makes everyday that much sweeter.  I don’t take a single day for granted.   I love and appreciate Mark more everyday.

I think that is why the girl’s words touched me so.  I know it wasn’t  easy for her parents, her Mom especially.  But I know how happy they are today.  I know her Mom’s decision to stick it out has paid off BIG time.  Now she gets to live the result of the commitment she made  years earlier.  “For better or for worse” are not just words, they are a promise.  There will be good times, there will be bad times.  I’m just so glad that Mark and I can be counted among the couples who managed to struggle, fight, pray our way through the bad times and now we are living the good times.  I hope and pray the same for my children and all young couples, that they can understand the bad times are only temporary, but the rewards for sticking it out will last a lifetime.

The Dreaded Senior Discount

About three years ago when hubby and I went to a buffet restaurant to eat, we were asked for the first time if we were seniors .  I noticed the sign on the cash register said “Senior discount for our customers 60 years and older.”   We said no, paid full price and went on in.  I didn’t say anything but inside my mind was whirling.  Sixty?  SIXTY!  I was only fifty-two!  I didn’t mind looking fifty-two when I was fifty-two but I didn’t want people thinking I was sixty when I was only fifty-two!  After we finished eating, we hit the road and Mark noticed I was more quiet than usual.  He kept trying to get me into a conversation but I wasn’t in the mood, I wanted to lick my wounds!  Finally he asked, more than a little annoyed, what the heck was wrong with me, what had he done?!  I said, “YOU didn’t do anything, but that girl at the restaurant thought we were sixty years old!!!!!”  He just laughed and said,  “Oh Norm, if she was out of her teens, she barely was.  Everyone looks old when you’re that age.”  I said, “I know, but I don’t like it.”  He finally got me to laugh about it and it became an inside joke between us every time we ate somewhere, rather we were going to be offered the senior discount or not.  As the months and years have passed, I’ve noticed the young cashiers studying our faces for just a second or two before either ringing us up full price or asking, “Senior?”   I always breathe a sigh of relief when we get through the line without hearing the dreaded word.

Last week, when we were there, we sailed through the line with barely a second glance.  I didn’t think anything of it until today, when I was putting the receipts from my billfold into the computer.  As I typed in the name of the restaurant, the amount that we last paid automatically appeared in the amount column.  The receipt was over four dollars less.  “Why would that be?” I thought, “The buffet is always the same amount.”  I looked down, and sure enough, there they were, the words Two Senior Buffets.    We weren’t even asked!  They just assumed we were sixty!  I had to chuckle to myself and put the receipt to the side to show Mark that we’d finally crossed the line!

My daughter suggested maybe we just looked like really nice people and the girl wanted to be nice to us.  That had to be it!  Or maybe, just maybe, even though we don’t know how, or when it happened,  we are fifty-five and fifty-seven years old.  And even though we don’t want to believe it, even though we still feel like kids on the inside, on the outside, we look our age.  I still don’t like it, but I am starting to accept it.  Who knows, before long I may enthusiastically ask everyone if they offer a senior discount, but not just yet.  I’ve got to fight it just a little longer.  I do believe I’ll see if that box of “Nice and Easy” that’s been setting on my shelf can help me pay full price at least a few more times!