Age-old Questions

Next week is my birthday.  A big, round-numbered one:  five-oh.  

Recently, a member of my family's older generation asked (and not in a nice way), "When are you going to grow up?!?!"

More recently, a member of my family's younger generation accused me of being an age-ist.

The result:  age has been on my mind a lot these days.

And here's what I've decided.  For now.  

Our society pretty much adores little, young things.   And there are a lot of good things about being little and young.  Like energy.  Like skin elasticity.  Like the idea that there is enough time and possibility in the world for you to actually run for President -- and win.

But I like being older better.  A LOT better.  And maybe that's why I got accused of being an age-ist.  Because I do believe that being older rocks, in ways that being younger just cannot.

For instance, what we gain from the trade-off in realizing there are not enough opportunities and time for us to become President is  a) the relief that we don't have to become President and can instead become whatever it is that is truly fitting for us and b) the awareness of the preciousness of time.

For me, that is the biggest -- and most poignant -- gift in getting older:  realizing that time is flying by AND WE'D BETTER MAKE THE MOST OF IT!!!

And so, we try things and don't give up as easily as we might have when we were younger.   And our elastic, pliant, lovely youth skin?  It gets a sinewy thickness that allows us to plow through rough waters without letting rejection deter us the way it did when we were younger.

Case in point.  About a year ago, when I tried to get Bean Up The Nose Art products into a totally cool store (that shall remain nameless), I could not even get the sales people there to give me a shot at talking to the buyer.  

You could count that as a "No."  

When I was younger, that would be exactly the perspective I would have had.  And it would have crushed me.  And with a couple of those in a row, quitting definitely would have felt like the right thing to do.   Because you'd ask, "Who likes my stuff, anyway? How will I make this work? And what is the point? I need to make money on this or it is pointless.  And that needs to happen now."

Age gives you some time and resources.  And the perspective to get to say, "Well.  We'll see."

This summer, after The French Artist Club sales rep got her foot in the door, that exact same store has become the most rapid re-order-er of cards and luggage tags.

When you're older, you have more opportunity to see that "No" can become "Yes."  Which when you are young, you just don't usually realize.  

And then again, there is that time-is-short feeling that helps you turn as many things into "Yes" as possible.  Like the terrific Masters athletes that I got to watch compete last weekend at the CrossFit Games.  Men and women from 45 up through their 70s, completely kicking butt.

And even folks not competing at the Games, but still kicking butt.  Like Clarke, who one year ago could not do pull-ups (how many 58 year old guys still can?) and who busted out 16 IN A ROW while watching the Games.

I do love being older.  If that makes me an age-ist, I'll have to embrace that accusation.  Simultaneously, I will respond to the older members of my family:  looks like I am never going to grow up.  And I am SO GRATEFUL for that!!!

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News about another feisty family female  . . . Grey Kitty, featured here in Beans last fall.  She is now fighting a massive lung infection of some as-yet-undiagnosed kind, and could use your feisty thoughts to keep up her feisty energy and fight this thing off.  GO, GREY KITTY!!!