Eight Great Things About Getting Older

I talked a friend of mine once who said when she hit thirty, she went through a great depression for the entire year. I'm getting ready to approach that life altering number, however other than some of the physical drawbacks that age can often bring, I'm thinking life is going to be much better in the later half. Here's eight signs that offer hope of going downhill being a fun ride rather than one that will leave you hurling.

1) When approaching the downhill years, you are usually concerned more with the way something feels rather than what it make look like.

This may be the nice large house that looks good but is better left in a magazine when it comes to taking care of and maintaining it. It may be the shoes that are too die for but may be better left on the rack when you think of the sores or whole in your wallet they may leave. Unless you are a fashion icon that is being photographed every day and having your worth measured by the studs on your ears, comfort and practicality usually win the war on most occasions. Unless you are truly the walking dead there will always be something that catches your eye, maybe even something of the opposite sex. However when it comes to long-term day in day out material, it better do more than just look good.

2) When it comes being mid chapter, you start thinking more of what's going to be going on til the end. Maybe it's where you're going to live, the car you drive, the job you have or your partner. When there's only so many years around the corner, everything seems like it needs to be a fit til the end. You start looking at these being things that need permanent installation in order to not distract you from what life's really about. Not much more need for changing, rearranging or yearning for something bigger and better. Hopefully the bigger and better comes with the dreams you dream and your ability to see more. As you lose one sense, the others seem to strengthen. With age, you are bound to gain some insight with the loss of eye sight.

3) You seem to care less about what other's think.

The young person with the beautiful skin, perky whatever it may have been and slender frame may get preferential treatment out in the world, but often suffers due to not having a clue as to what true happiness is about. Life's all about trade-offs, so when your looks start to dry up like a puddle in the desert, you start caring less and less about what other people think. Let's face it, you really don't have a choice unless you want to fight with plastic surgery or spend all your time and money on the search for the fountain of youth.

Maybe it's not just looks that you've fought with in order to impress your greater peer group. Maybe it's the jaguar in the driveway who's payments are creaming you or the job you have that gives you a great title but not much else. Whatever it is, you decide if you're only holding on to it because of what other people may think, it's time to let it go.

4) You start to appreciate the little stuff more.

You start to find it amazing that you woke up that morning and that there are things like rainy days and bright beautifully colored trees who's leaves change and fall. You start to take note of other beautiful things around you like a kind gesture or the extra fifteen minutes you have nothing to do. You are able to distinguish more of what's important, what's not and it becomes clearer that it's the "small" stuff that more often than not seems to be what's really important. It's easier to be grateful because your day is already filled with them.

5) You put fear more into it's place.

It's not that you become fearless to the point that you laugh at death by speeding down a one way in the wrong direction or you have unprotected sex with someone you met five minutes ago. However you now have learned what is worthy of caution and what is not. You may think twice before speaking, however if it needs to be said, you'll say it. You may need to talk to others about their experience before trying something new, but you try it. You begin to not hold back or apologize for your existence, feelings or experiences. You wake up to the fact that at the end of the day, the only person you have to answer to is you. That's the only thing that makes you shake in your boots.

6) You start treating your body more kindly.

Whether it be the extra sugary stuff that looked too good to resist or the five inch heels that made you appear taller, you learn how to say no to the things that don't make your body happy. You begin to take rest seriously and if it's a late night out then it's fine as long as there aren't several to follow. Drinking takes on a new meaning and rather than doing it with a passion and as if your life depended on it, you learn when to say when so that you don't wish you didn't exist a day later. Your body no longer takes the abuse without screaming back at you and you've finally woken up after it being tired of the abuse it's taken.

7) You stop worrying about trying to change the world and focus more on enjoying it.

I remember some point where I went door to door asking for donations for some cause with a group of canvasers. After being out walking for hours in freezing weather, I realized that was as far as I had ever went or would go for some cause to change the world. There's injustices in the world every day in all kinds of ways. There always has been and probably always will be. Life and our world just isn't quite fair. However as you get older, you come to realize that you can find good in absolutely anything if you look hard enough which doesn't leave much room for anger. Science beat us to the punch. There's things called protons and neutrons that are the positive and the negative that make all things happen. Without them both, nothing would exist. One doesn't happen without the other, go figure. I'd rather live on the good end of things. The only way for that to happen is for me to adjust my focal lens. It doesn't mean if I can't do something kind for someone else or be something good in the world, that I won't. However it does mean that I won't spend my days fighting the injustices of the world when there are plenty in my own backyard like a squeaky dryer that is going to drive me crazy while I write this, an anemic bank account and aches and pains in my body already at my young age of almost thirty.

8) You let go of grudges, realize that the world nor anyone else owes you anything and you take more deep breaths of freedom.

I've never been a big grudge holder, but even I at certain points felt certain people like my parents and the people that I had relationships with at least "sort of" owed me something. You see people with sparkling shiny families and lives and you say damn it, why wasn't I given that golden ticket? Or you see the husband on television that takes his wife to Europe every year and you curse your own. I once heard "it's the greenest grass that is the hardest to mow". Yet when we come from a perspective of lack, we aren't seeing things that way. People looked at me growing up and often felt sorry for me because I didn't grow up with "normal" parents in my life, only one that sometimes was. However, even that had it's positives. There was no name to live up to, no pressure that many "fortunate" kids feel and never too much being told what to do and how to do. There was a lot of freedom in that, just like there was when I got over the deck of cards I was dealt and learned to be thankful for the ones I had. The older you get, the more you let go of the cries and welcome the whispers. The more you let go when you are angry and let the world do it's thing, while you do your own.

It seems the only thing that brings these great gifts are years lived. There's no short cut, no lucky draw. The only prize comes to those who listen without the ears that will eventually go deaf. So as your physical body ages and you slowly decay, there's some peace in knowing that your spirit will still be growing and that other aspects of your will life get better.