No Longer Youngest

 You can’t get to my age and not think about what you want to accomplish in the years you have left on this planet.  When someone says he/she went to the other side, I find this description is so much more palatable than; Oh, he/she died, kicked the bucket, passed away, or was terminated by the Mandalorian.  What was really on my mind was,  “why am I thinking I need to accomplish anything”. As it happens being a fourth quarter queen has been quite satisfying.  But in the back of my mind I keep thinking about something Judith Viorst wrote in her book “When Did I Get to be 40 and Other Atrocities”  At some point when she is describing her life she mentions that she will never be the youngest to do anything anymore.She also says that real love is when your husband is late and you wonder whether he was having an affair or he got hit by a truck and you hope he got hit by a truck.  Needless to say, Judith Viorst is one of my favorite writers. 

 Moving on... or moving back to the accomplishments part of this blob. There comes a point when we no longer put our age on a resume.  In addition,  we try to avoid anything that makes us look ancient, which is quite difficult.   If a stranger looked at my resume they might think, geez how did she do all that?  Obviously, the answer is — wait for it,  she got old.

There are some things that I would still like to accomplish, like getting “Gefilte Fish the Musical” produced, but again Judith expresses my feeling better than I ever could:

I used to rail against my compromises.

I yearned for the wild music, the swift race.

But happiness arrived in new disguises:

Sun lighting a child's hair.  A friend's embrace.

Slow dancing in a safe and quiet place.

The pleasures of an ordinary life.

I'll have no trumpets, triumphs, trails of glory.

It seems the woman I've turned out to be

Is not the heroine of some grand story.

But I have learned to find the poetry

In what my hands can touch, my eyes can see.

The pleasures of an ordinary life.

We used to make fun of the people who went to Florida, or if you lived in the West, to Palm Springs or Palm Desert.  But now I get it — the cold and the snow are simply too much work.  What"s funny is that when my parents did their yearly migration to Hallandale Fl. we thought that they, and their friends were old.  In fact, you had to be older or you weren’t allowed past the Georgia border.  

So what does all this rambling mean.  Nothing really, except I only want to stay on this side for as long as I’m functional, healthy and able to enjoy each day.  And the fact that I will not ever be the youngest to achieve anything, isn’t too painful anymore.  We’re just sayin’ ...Iris