On my 67th Birthday I wrote the following Journal ... no one else would ever see it ... until now. I never thought of age as something to dwell on. Maybe I'd start getting old at 50 years. That was an age that seemed a long way off and maybe the end of young and the beginning of old. Someone said, "After fifty, it's patch, patch, patch!" I don't remember who said that to me ... my memory has become a sieve in the last few years.
I did notice on that 67th Birthday (for the first time):
* The wrinkles that make-up didn't seem to cover...
* The pounds that I could not peel off with diet anymore....
* The extra care I had to give my skin and hair....
* The loss of strength and energy to keep going or to snap back from minor illness...
Still, there are advantages to having survived may years.... even 67 of them:
* By now I've made most of the worst mistakes a human being can make, so I hope I'll not repeat them.
* I've learned many priceless lessons only time can teach ... lessons that make life infinately better at 67 than
at twenty or thirty: Things usually do look better in the morning.
* No letter written in the heat of emotion shoould be mailed for at least 24 hours;
* It's easier to forgive the sins of an enemy than those of family.
* Everything in this world is temporary.
* Nobody I admire has had an easier life than I have, and.....
* God is the only One who will not disappoint me if I expect Him to be perfect.
Would I trade knowledge like this for a young face or body? Come to think of it, NO ! If I die tomorrow.... I've had it all!
OK, LORD, I'VE BOUGHT IT....OLDER IS BETTER !
I'm past the "Middle-Miles" that are the most exhausing, challenging miles on the path....
The early "Aging Anxiety" negatives and positives faced and overcome.....
Best of all.... the Bible (Luke 5:39) confirms: "No man also having drunk old wine straightway
desireth new; for he saith, 'the old is better."
