Old

I was born in the 50's so a boomer I am. My Dad was a high school teacher and my Mom was a homemaker, two sisters two brothers. It was for the times a normal family. We grew up not having a lot of money but never really knowing this....we always seemed to have what we needed.

Birthdays were never really a big deal(not in my house anyway). All five of us were a year apart in age plus like I said we didn't have much money. Cake and a card maybe a small gift that was it, no parties none of that. Anyway when I turned 10 I can still remember how excited I was to just get out of the single digets. Silly I know, but turning ten was a big deal to me. Funny I can still remember how I felt the night before some 60 years later.

Got married at nineteen. I know too young, I have no idea what I was thinking. We eloped on a summers night. He was twenty one and we were in love, he was also in the Navy being shipped out the next day. I broke the news to my parents the next day and as you can imagine they were not to happy with me.They grew to accept it as time went on. And time did go on we had two kids and a somewhat happy marriage. He passed away at the age of forty seven from heart problems. The year was 1999 a sad horrible year. My brother also died that same year. They say time heals and they are right as the years went by it did get easier.

Despite thinking it would never happen my kids grew up and moved on to their own lives. My mother used to say "Time is wasted on the young"well I found out how true that is as I got older. The older you get the faster time goes...hardly seems fair at all.

Now I am a grandmother and approaching seventy.I have lived through my parents deaths, losing a husband and a brother also friends gone forever. Having my children become adults and moving on. Looking back it all seems to have gone by in warp speed. The thing is I feel the same in my head.I am no longer young with no wrinkles or gray hair, but in my mind I am still that little girl excited to being ten.

I never liked the word old...it always meant your near the end of your life and well nobody really wants that. But I am considered old now and find myself thinking more about memories than what the future will bring. I worry a lot less and have finally realized what a waste of time that is, all you can do as you get old is look back once in while but do all you can to look foward.

Looking foward can be a challange when your older. Their is a whole lot of been there done that. And a whole lot of would of, could have, should have. But you can't go backwards. I do wonder at times how different my life would be if I took a different path. Would I be the same person I am today...this is something I will never know.

Time is not on my side,I can accept that. Well I really have no other choice do I ? I can just hope that my children and grandchildren and all that come after me have memories of happy lives as they grow older. And yes its true , Time goes by very fast.