Growing Old?

We try.

We give it our best shot.

Our best efforts, however, are futile.

The stark reality eventually breaks through all the clouds and smoke screens of our personal denial.

I will admit it.

I am growing old. I refuse to think that I am old. Growing? Yes. Old? No. Perhaps even this refusal is yet another illusion in my aging mind. I will continue to protest and grasp tightly to this refusal … illusion or not.

Stark reality. Mail has begun to arrive in our P.O. Box insisting that my existing health insurance will soon be transferred to the department that will oversee my “Old Timer” health insurance coverage with its assorted alphabetical parts. Stark reality. In March I will turn Sixty-Five.

Where did the years go and how did they go so fast?

The Autumn beauties shine only for a short season as part of their cycle of life.

Then they are gone.

They are fading fast now.

Winter is coming.

How many more seasons do I have in me to enjoy their seasonal shining?

The unanswerable question spurs me.

I cannot answer the unanswerable question. I can say that I will make the best of the remaining seasons … ever how many (or few) there happen to be.

Life, in some ways, is just now getting really good. It is, at the same time, leveling some physical limitations on me that require adjustments and creative work arounds in order to maintain my status as an avid woods wanderer and outdoor adventurer.

The stark reality is that reality bites. It bites all of us sooner or later. None of us are immune to its effects. Our challenge is to recognize and accept our limitations and find ways to continue doing what we do in spite of them … even if that means doing them in lesser degrees over shorter distances.

Rest assured, I have taken up the challenge. In numerous ways the best is yet to come. I am yet a long way from dumping my pack and calling it quits.

I have always been given to episodes of nostalgia. I have always been an introspective person. I have noticed that I have grown even more nostalgic and introspective as the calendar months have brought me closer to the sixty-five-year age marker. That these traits appear in my blogs and videos are unavoidable.

Pardon me.

My age is beginning to show.

Growing old has its perks though.

Life has gotten a lot simpler now that the mad rush to get here is behind me.

In its simplicity there is time to more fully apprehend and appreciate the things that were, during the rush, snatched and grabbed at fleetingly when time would allow. There is time to go at things at an unhurried pace. There is time to entertain nostalgia. There is time to experience introspection. There is time to wander and wonder with less thought given to the movement of the hands on the clock, or the day of the week, or the month of the year.

There is, at the same time, no time to entertain distracting disputes, controversies, and forms of bovine fecal matter that needlessly consume emotional and mental energy. 

The adventure continues, folks. Even when the Old Timer Insurance kicks in. We may not move as fast or carry as much weight as we did when we were younger and more spry but there is still room for us in the woods. 

Enjoy the adventure!