wake up one morning and suddenly realize that it is taking longer to get out of bed and do all the myriad physical chores that need to be done during the course of the day. We see that the skin on the face and neck are sagging and there are pouches of fat where there shouldn't be any.... These are the physical aspects.
What about the mental-emotional-psychological aspects? We see that maybe we've become more fragile and short-tempered and crabby and critical and unforgiving.....
We read about how as we grow older we need to accept our bodies with all the changes. We also read about how, now that we have most of our life in the past, we ought to draw on the wisdom we have garnered to make this last phase the best one of our lives.
So many things to accept, understand, change when we reach that certain distinct age. More often than not is the physical inadequacy we feel, the emotional insecurity, the fear of financial dependence....and more...interspersed with feelings of wanting to give up and just go away and hide, to remove ourselves from the bustle of daily living and to allow insecurity to suck us into its black hole.
Yesterday I saw a small video clip of women of a certain distinct age talk about what they might have done when they were younger, had they but known and paid attention to the present they were living in.....and how finally they had come to the conclusion that it was more important TO BE than To DO and that they were going to live out the rest of their lives BEING and not try to do or feel bad about not being able to do.
There are many sites which encourage women and men of that certain distinct age to revel in their age...to look at the new stage of life with new eyes...to repair damage done in the years that are gone...to take on new challenges instead of hiding from them...to look on the new phase as an adventure...to greet each day with gratitude and happiness...