Life never goes backwards. It continues to move us forward even if we don’t want to. We all have thoughts about what we will be like as we grow older. I envisioned this slim elegant woman. Didn’t happen. Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder “who is that person.” I have not aged the way I thought I would. I imagine you have noticed that the picture on my site is one of my basset hounds. There is a reason for that. I always thought that I would age gracefully but it has not worked out that way. My body didn’t cooperate. Who is that person in the mirror?
The good news is that some of the other (and more important things) have come true. I am still active, my mind is ok? at least I think so. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t learn something new.
We may have certain ideas about how we will age but many of them are not important. We need to keep working on the things that are important. We need to have people we love in our lives. We need to keep learning and growing. We need to share ourselves with others. We need to participate in the world both the one near to us and the wider world. If we do these things then life will continue to have meaning until the day we leave this world. Concentrate on what is important.
I’m still wondering “who is that woman in the mirror?”
It is so hard to live without answers. I want to know how things will work out with my friend’s husband. I want to know how my granddaughter’s life will go with a new baby. I want to know how I will feel tomorrow. I want to know if my IBS will kick me. This is just a small portion of what I want to know.
If you learn about the early church and the followers of Jesus it is apparent (although seldom mentioned) that women played an important role. After all, they were the first to see Jesus after his crucifixion. Mary Magdalene was a follower of his and important in his ministry and NOT a prostitute. She was relegated to that role later in church history when the Roman church did its best to disavow the roles of women. Women were the personification of sin and not allowed to be a meaningful part of the church. The church did a good job and it wasn’t until centuries later that the protestant traditions began to reverse the trend. It has always been interesting to me that priests were not allowed to marry in spite of the fact that our beliefs sprang from Judaism which believed that men should marry.
I am offended by this trend and concerned for the life of believers. Who knows…maybe we will end up being persecuted and it will revive the faith. Hardship and persecution does seem to bring out the best in belief.
Well, another day has gone by. Family issues have been there for one day. The things that can’t be fixed are still there. There is nothing to do about them. Obsessing about them doesn’t help. Worrying doesn’t fix them. Life moves on and we have a choice. We can move on with it and solve the things we can solve and or just fall down into the dark hole of depressions and anxiety. That really doesn’t seem like a choice.
Families are interesting. I am an only child and so I never had siblings to deal with. When my husband and I married I never thought about how families interact. We have three wonderful children who are married to great people. That expanded out family from three plus us to six +. Now each of them has 2 children which has expanded the family to 12 +. We also have had to work with the in-laws. None of them are bad people but again it added another element to the group.
Lately I have been thinking about good and bad emotions. Good emotions run the gamut from a simple flash of a decent day to full blown joy. It is easy to see the negative ones. Fear, anger, sadness, anxiety, depression, sorrow….I could go on. To counter these we can use the positive things we don’t often see as emotions: safety, relaxation, strength, gratitude, pleasure, satisfaction, friendship, kindness, and assertiveness. (From the article How to Tap into Your Light by 
We have to learn to focus on the positive emotions and use them to overcome the negative ones. To do that we need to remember what they are and see them when they come. The list above can be added to I’m sure. It’s easy to see how we think when I realized that I had to find that list and couldn’t just come up with one from my head but the negative emotions were right on the tip of my tongue.
Sometimes people who are young look at those of us who are older with disdain. What do we know? They dismiss us or not even see us. It usually doesn’t bother me but sometimes I see someone just ignore someone elderly and it makes me furious.
Don’t dismiss older people because of their age. Yes, some people have dementia or fading memory. Some choose to sit in a chair and vegetate but they are not in the majority. My contemporaries are out there doing good works. Don’t dismiss us!
I don’t think we pay enough attention to the things we see and hear each day. I like to find meaningful quotes wherever I am, whatever I am watching or doing. Sometimes things just jump out at me. I was watching a random episode of Grey’s Anatomy (TV show–not something I routinely watch) and someone made this comment.
That is so true. My mother always threw salt over her shoulder if it was spilled. She was shooing away bad luck. I had a friend who gave me an amazing set of rely pearls because her mother always said they were bad luck. How many of us have heard about not walking under a ladder or about a black cat running across your path being bad luck.
The truth is we don’t have all the answers and we never will. We have to find ways to live with that truth. Many people in science feel that they have the answers. I don’t. The thing that helps me is my belief in God. I don’t have to have all the answers. I can let it go.
Have you ever felt that you move out of the frying pan into the fire? Lately I seem to be doing that. I get past one crisis and another arises. I do key into other’s problems and help if I can. At times that can be overwhelming. Sometimes I just need to back away.
Today was such a mixed day. I began stressed waiting for some medical results. I think I overdid my meds because of that. I got called about 11:00 that all is well and the anxiety subsided to leave me feeling groggy. It’s funny how there are times when the adrenaline goes it goes all at once. Still I felt good. I went to meet some friends for lunch and on the way out of the building down steep stairs fell the last two and twisted my foot/ankle? It hurt but I could walk on it so went on to enjoy lunch.
Life is about balance. Can I balance my checkbook? Can I balance work and home? Can I balance exercise and food? We are always working to keep life on track. We have to weigh the things we do and try to keep an honest balance. Taking care of others and not ourselves makes life out of balance. In contrast we can say the same thing about paying attention only to ourselves and shutting others out is not a balanced life.
worry-less-journey 