Monthly Archives: October 2015

24Oct/15

Friends Forever…

What exactly does this mean?

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This is a picture of my first friends..my neighborhood friends. There were a few more that aren’t on this picture like my friend, Jan who lived in the house pictured behind us. Two of the kids in the picture are no longer with us, one is my sister Rhonda on the far left and Judy, on the far right, who has also passed. It makes me happy and sad at the same time looking at this picture.

When I was in Brownies we used to sing a song called “Make New Friends”. I never forgot it. My grand daughter told me they still sing it at her girl scout meetings. For anyone who wasn’t in Brownies or Girl Scouts it goes like this. “Make new friends, but keep thee old…One is silver and the other’s gold.” I believe this to be very true. There are many different kinds of friends. Some of them are Silver and some are pure Gold..

I have made many friends over my time here on earth and I am blessed with some of the most wonderful people that I call my friends. But there have also been people that came into my life at different times and they are no longer in my life. I’ve had quite a collection of awesome friends at many of the jobs I have had in my working career. They seemed to come in to my life when I needed them and we had so many things in common and then when I left the job and moved on so did the friendships. I don’t know why this happens and sometimes we really try to keep those friendships going but life seems to get in the way.

I have recently found a few people from my past. Friends from long ago, granted we were different people then but as soon as we talked, it was like yesterday and no time had passed at all. I also have reconnected with some of my friends from high school and I seriously don’t know what I would do without them. We are all going through the same things at the same time. Losing parents, taking care of parents, grandchildren, health issues and so many other things. Sometimes, after a conversation about health issues we laugh at ourselves and say, “who would have thought we’d be talking about this.”  But we have a bond, a connection and we can talk about many things we can’t talk about to anyone else.  These friendships have sustained me through some very dark times recently.

I have friends that live near by and friends that have moved many miles away. One of my best friends just moved a thousand miles away and it makes me sad not to be able to pick up the phone and say, lets meet for lunch today. But we are still the best of friends and always will be. There is no doubt in my mind of that. A few thousand miles can not take away the friendship we have and another reason is…she knows too much… What is a true friend and how do you know it will pass the test of time? I’ll tell you..When you are puking your guts out after a long happy hour (this isn’t for just a few minutes, more like hours) and they aren’t angry at you, in fact they are holding your hair so it doesn’t get puke on it…then you know you have a lifetime friend.

So people may come and go in your life. Some people may be friends for a short time and some for a lifetime. And some people are just friends on Facebook. It doesn’t make them any less a friend. Our lives are better for having them in it. I know I am blessed to have these people I call friends in my life and hopefully they feel the same.  I love them all and am grateful every single day that they are on this journey with me. They are Gold! I hope they know that.

“There comes a point in your life when you realize who really matters, who never did, and who always will.” – Unknown

15Oct/15

Ten Reasons Growing Older Rocks!!

“Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative” Maurice Chevalier

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It’s been said “youth is wasted on the young”, but I couldn’t find who really said it. Some sources say George Bernard Shaw and others attribute it to Oscar Wilde and neither of their quotes are the same. Anyway, the meaning of this is, when you are young you don’t really appreciate it. You are young in body and mind and think you will live forever. Not until you reach a certain age do you fully appreciate what you have. And considering “the alternative” as stated so eloquently by Maurice above, here are my top ten reasons growing older rocks.

1. Best thing ever…Senior Discounts…these are awesome….and you don’t even know most of them even exist. Don’t feel bad about asking for them, we’ve earned them…and more.

2. Younger people excuse you(most of the time anyway) when you say or do something stupid. Because of course, we’re old and don’t know any better… Not that I ever say or do something stupid.

3. People think we know everything about everything!  I guess because we are old and have lived though so much, we must have good advice. The flip side to this is, when some people don’t take the advice we give them… I guess we shouldn’t waste our breath, who knows how many of them we have left.

4. We don’t have to worry or stress about the big choices in life anymore. Like what career choices to make or if we should or shouldn’t have kids.  Most of the big choices have been made by us or for us. We are past that point now and can do what we want. We can work if we choose to work and do what we love to do instead of working to make a paycheck. And at least in my case there are no more kids going to be happening any time soon. Maybe a dog or cat…but that’s it.

5. It is a time in our lives when we truly have learned that looks can only get you so far. It’s not on the outside, it’s what’s inside that matters. So this means we can dress for us and for comfort. I do like to be fashionable, just not every day. If I want to lunge around in my sweats all day, I will.  And no more 4 inch heels for me. I killed my poor feet for far too long.

6. Our relationships with friends and family are real. I think we have come to the point where we have lost so many people and know that we only have so many more years left so the relationships we have in our lives now are the ones we want to be there. So we make time for them and cherish each moment we spend with them. When we were younger, our friends were all going through the having kids thing, the moving for careers thing and various other reasons why we didn’t have time or were in different places in our lives. Now we are for the most part at the same place and we have the time. When we are with family members now, there is an awareness that the time we are spending together is special.

7. The most fun thing ever is that we have time to be with our grandkids, to enjoy them, take them places and then send them home to their parents. Having grandkids is a lot like having kids only so much better because we don’t have the responsibilities we had with our kids. It is not on us to make them come out right. So we can just enjoy them.

8. We can do things we want to now, not because we have to. I have started writing at the age of 65. It is something I always wanted to do. Something I dreamed of doing, but just never seemed to have the time. I wrote as a teenager and then again in my late 20’s but then somehow just never started back up again. But I never lost the desire or the dream. It is never too late and we are never too old!

9. Naps! We can take naps and we can sleep in or go to bed early. There is no alarm waking us up for work. Getting up when I want to get up is the best feeling in the world. Getting up at all is even better.

10. I don’t have to be anywhere on anyone’s schedule but mine. If I want to spend the whole day reading, watching tv or on Facebook, I can do that. I sometimes feel guilty and then I stop and think about it, I deserve this, I earned the right to do what I want when I want. So I do!

These are my top ten. I’m sure I can think of more. I will end with this quote from Bernard Baruch, “To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am”. I feel the same way.

Are you enjoying getting older? What are some of the reasons you enjoy it?

01Oct/15

Ten Reasons Growing Older Sucks…

No one told me it would be like this!

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This was me, back in the early 80’s..having fun, dancing with friends. Now some 30 years later I’m old…how did this happen? I don’t like it and why didn’t anyone tell me it would be like this?

Here are my top ten reasons why I don’t like it.

1. I have things growing that were not there before and other things that were there falling off or are hardly there.

2. Hair in places where it never was before and where it is supposed to be, there isn’t any(like eyebrows..you thought I meant somewhere else, ha!) And when I say hairs growing where they shouldn’t be I don’t just mean a little hair..I mean, like a foot long hair growing on my chin…and it’s there for days and no one mentioned it. WTH?

3. Losing so many people I care about. I have lost so many people and I am the only one left of my immediate family. This really sucks. I remember my Mom talking about losing so many of her friends and her family and how it affected her, but I didn’t realize what it was like until it happened to me.

4. Dealing with endless long, very long(some have been over an hour, and that isn’t even including the time on hold) phone calls and written info from Medicare, Social Security and health care organizations. Why do I have to pay for something I don’t use? Why isn’t there a better plan for people that aren’t sick and don’t take drugs or medications? I have been dealing with all of this for months and still don’t have answers. It sucks!

5. How time goes by so fast. I remember wanting to be 13, then 16 and 21. I wished so much time away wanting to be older and now it is zooming by faster than the speed of light. Each year goes by faster than the one before.

6. It sucks that I may not get to do all of the things on my bucket list. Not that I can’t, just that time may run out.

7. I hate I can’t remember the name of simple things…like maybe a fork, but I can remember someones daughters name from 40 years ago. And I am hoping and praying that I don’t forget everything and everyone one day in the future.

8. I have more spots on my body than a dalmatian. Also little lumps and bumps appear daily when I look in the mirror and with each new one I think…this is it! This is the one that will do me in…

9. I hate that I may never know the feeling of falling in love again. And that my last love really was my last love. If I would have known that at the time would I have done things differently? Believe me, I am quite happy by myself…it’s just something I think about. Its so final!

10. And last, I hate that my friends and I have turned into our parents. We were sitting at dinner not too long ago and the conversation was about who was on what medication and the tests they just had at the doctors. We talked about what foods bother our stomachs and where we can use our senior discounts. I said, “ok, that’s enough of this…lets talk about fun things”. We laughed ourselves silly when we realized what we sounded like.

It sucks that we are not the hot new thing anymore. To some we aren’t even relevant and they don’t care what we think or have to say or want to listen to our sage advice. But we have a lot to say and a lot to offer those that want to hear it. Lets use our time we have left to enjoy life and show those young whippersnappers what we can do. Our generation changed the world once, let’s do it again.

What do you hate about growing old(er)?

By the way..next week’s blog topic is, Top Ten Things I “love” about growing older…