How quickly the years pass as we age
When we are younger and eagerly awaiting being on our own and exploring the world around us, it seemed that months and years took much longer to pass than how those same periods of time fly past in our older years.
My wife and I have just celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary and she has just turned the big Six-Oh! It seems not so very long ago that we were a 23- and 28-year-old embarking on the journey of life together. We had so many things we both wanted to accomplish and experience together.
Our anniversary is May 4, her birthday is May 6; in the early years of our marriage, the first week of May would often turn into a three-day celebration as we celebrated Cinco de Mayo between our other two special days – more often than not, a bit too much!
Ah, but the process of aging has a way of slowly but surely curtailing some of the activities that we once practiced on a regular basis. As I move solidly into the category of “elderly” I’ve realized how quickly our years gone by seem to have happened.
In what seems like the blink of an eye, we go from youth to middle-age and then on to old age. Sure, we have career highs and lows, travel experiences, births, and deaths that all represent specific times in our lives, but the older we get, the more those memories begin the blend together becoming the patchwork quilts of our lives.
I recall thinking when I turned 60, that the next five years – also known as the countdown to retirement – would take forever to navigate through, but that has most certainly not been the case. I’m now down to just 15 months.
After years of being somewhat concerned about our collective futures, my wife and I have now begun discussing where we want to spend our later years and how we would likely respond if either of us were diagnosed with a terminal or long-term disease. We don’t discuss these concerns out of fear but know we both have to let the other know exactly what we prefer individually and how our personal decisions may impact the other mentally, physically, and financially.
It seems not so long ago that we never thought about stairs in our home. Now, as we plan for the future, we both agree that our next home will be a single-level with as near to a maintenance-free yard as possible. I’m thinking astroturf would be the perfect option for our yard.
