On Being 29

These ruminations inspired by a
 recent birthday.You guessed it.😉

It's a funny thing, growing older. Make no mistake, I'm up for any excuse to throw a party, but birthdays, as an excuse, lose their novelty about the time it's literally impossible to fit all the candles on the cake. There are practical considerations one just cannot ignore. Case in point: we kids thought we were pretty clever the year my Dad turned fifty, when we turned out our pockets to buy fifty birthday candles for his cake and lit them all -- thus setting off the smoke alarm in the kitchen. We laaaaughed -- but my Dad just looked rather grim as he waved the smoke toward an open window with a newspaper. Not that he wailed and moaned at the passing years -- at least not out loud. He accepted the burden of age on his shoulders like he accepted all burdens: stoically -- while quietly trying to keep clear of the smoke, and we were none the wiser. Yet.

Men, for the most part, seem to take age in a manly fashion, brushing the numbers off as if they don't matter -- even when they start to feel arthritic, can't eat past 5 p.m,. and 10:00 is the new midnight.  (No, am I thinking of you, Dan? 😅) You know the guys feel it all, of course, but it's their duty to remain unruffled. We women, though, feel no such compunction: we ruffle. It's a common joke that none of us girls ever ages past 29 years. As if being thirty is the threshold of old age! Good gracious, youngsters. I guess 30 sounds old to a teenager, but I was still a mere babe at 30! I didn't know it then, but I know it now; take my word on it. In reality, the body only really starts to go south at about 40 -- and the brain at about 50. We have to work five times as hard to just stay neutral and out of

clinics past those ages, but we're not meeting the Grim Reaper for coffee and doughnuts. Not necessarily. There's still lots of life left to live, planes to catch, balls to drop, lessons to learn. If we've made it past our first thirty irresponsible and careless years without killing ourselves, however, we can't help but notice Mortality lurking somewhere behind us. Threateningly. We've earned the awareness. And it hits hard about once a year or so, when we can't help but notice how nobody even thinks about putting candles on our birthday cakes.

But it's a good thing. Like how frostbite is a warning to get in from the cold. It's a gift from God, and that is no joke. These creaky joints and gray hairs are Him saying: Don't get too comfortable on this earthly plane; you are not made for this world, sweetheart.  A sobering thing to remember -- if we remember. And if we hear His loving but exasperated endearment at the end there. I was still really very stupid at 29 years of age, and I'm not sure I'm less stupid now; God knows I need these constant reminders that opportunities to learn and grow and fix myself are not like my Verizon plan, unlimited. I'm 57 and only just really understanding this. Not just at a superficial academic level, but, literally, down deep in my achy bones. We really cannot and should not stay 29 years old -- any more than the walnut tree in our backyard would be better if it stayed a sapling. 

The stinkin' walnut tree, God love it.

God help me end up as fruitful as that stinkin' walnut tree! Over a hundred years old and a force to be reckoned with. But, here's the pancake (as Sr. E says): we have a couple twenty-something kids on the property now to clean up all the walnuts and saplings, bless them, while we supervise and nod knowingly: an ounce of prevention, kids... Get after it now, or you'll regret it later! And in twenty years, they might tell their children the same thing. And so on. And so on. As the twig is bent, so inclines the tree. We are now watching our own forest growing -- something we couldn't see yet when we were 29. And it is a good thing. Well worth being 57 years old to get a glimpse.