Everyone always tells you … it starts when you are very young. All adults tell you over and over and again, “You’ll see. You will blink your eyes and you will be 40. Then you will blink again and you will be old.”
As a child or a teen, you just don’t believe it. Life just drags by waiting and waiting and waiting, until you are out of high school. Then, at last, you start college and you start to notice, just a little bit, time flies by, as your final paper is due. Semesters turn into years and you are out of college looking for a job. You have lots of fun for a few years and then MARRIGE! After a few years then out pops a CHILD. How did that happen you wonder? Just about when you have figured out how that particular blessed event occurred, then what happens? Out pops another blessed event, ANOTHER CHILD!
One day you are cleaning the cat’s hairball off of your favorite Oriental rug after taking the dog out for his fourth walk of the day, your two boys are fighting over the remote and the pasta on the stove has boiled over when your mother comes for a visit. You try to get some sympathy from her by explaining your day. When you complain about the kids taking up all of your days and nights, your mother says, “Take time to enjoy them now” she announces firmly as she looks around the room, waves her arms and hands in an open gesture, “because soon you will look back and wish they were your little boys again. You will miss the cat and the dog and these very problems.” As a tired and overworked mother of two boys, pet owner, wife, and working-woman, you shake your head and answer her, “OH NO, I won’t. I’ll revel in the joy of having a moment to myself.”
Well, just to let you know everyone was right. I was wrong. I blinked my eyes and I was 45 and I blinked again and I was 65 and now, in a few days, I will be 68. ME, 68 YEARS OLD! HOW DID IT HAPPEN AND WHAT HAPPENED TO MY YOUTH?
BTW, who are these two men who come to visit me?
The one guy has a tattoo and a girlfriend and he just found two cats that he is caring for, feeding, and taking to get checkups at his local vet? He goes to work every day and he just got a small promotion. He rents his own apartment. He has a beard!!! He looks very familiar. This young man has an older brother who recently moved into my guest bedroom for a while. He has a nice personality. This fellow is tall. He can reach bowls for me that are stored on the top shelf of my kitchen cabinets. He takes care of my pets and helps me with my computer and he does most of the cooking. This big guy is on Twitter. He has 690 followers. He lets me use his car since mine was totaled last year when a young man (almost his age) ran a light and smashed into my Jeep. The young man that is living with me seems familiar to me too. Where have I seen these men before?
Oh Yes, I forgot, 32 years have passed. I blinked. These two men are my sons. They are the very same boys that used to fight in the living room over the remote, and fight with me when I tried to help them with their homework. They don’t fight anymore they watch sport’s channels and go out for fast food. They kiss me hello and goodbye. These two men were the two little boys that I once complained to my mother about while wiping my furrowed brow saying, “I just can’t wait until they are men.” Here it is. They are men and just the other day I looked at a photo of us together. (We were on vacation when my children were young.) The boys were leaning on each other sitting on a bench and I was standing behind them with my arms around both of them. Then, it hit me. For a few minutes, I wished that they were young again. I missed my little boys fighting and yelling and the mixture of fun and worry and constantly picking up toys on the floor and buying school supplies. I missed all of it.
I heard my mother’s voice again, in my imagination, and I could see her smiling at me, saying, “See, honey, I told you so.” She was right, of course. They were all right. It all goes by so fast and in a blink of an eye however, there are a few things that “they” didn’t mention.
Frankly, I’m also glad that my boys are now grown, men. I’m glad my son is finding his own way in the world. My baby is a man and he is holding a job. He got a promotion. He is a nice man and he has a very nice girlfriend. I like her, he likes her and he is happy. He is a loving, respectful, person.
My oldest son is a kind, thoughtful, caring man, with a good sense of humor and a generous spirit. He is smart. He helps both of his parents with their businesses. He fixes our phones and our computer mistakes. He does my taxes for heaven’s sake! He runs my errands. He is an excellent chef and he handles most of the pet issues. I have two grown sons that are good men and they love each other.
Now, back to my future. Unless some unforeseen events happen, in the next two weeks, I will be 68 years old. Then, in the blink of an eye, well, you get the idea, I will either be really, really, old, 90 something, and reciting my new post for my blog in my computer, who will probably be auto-correcting me, or, I will be thinking up new ideas for a blog in that great big unknown. “Beyond the Beyond.” In the meantime, I am going to go up to every young person I know and say to them, “Just wait, you will see, in the blink of an eye you will be 40 and blink again and you will be 65.”
It does go by quickly. Hang on tight because, it’s a very fast ride but it is a fun, interesting, sometimes exciting ride, potholes and all.
Until Next Week…
Is There Sex After 60? (Navigating Single Life After 60) 