And that's a wrap...

Somehow this morning I woke up a full year older than I went to bed, at least if you look at my drivers license.  Personally I feel age is simply a number.  I don't feel any older, maybe a bit less rested, I didn't get everything on my to do list done yesterday and some had a deadline, so I am feeling the pressure.  But other than that... I am just the same. 

I remember being a little kid, counting the minutes, so excited!  It seems like only yesterday I was anxious to be 16, then 18, then 21.... those were such important milestones, now I have children that have passed all of those.

I hated being 25, it really creeped me out.  I absolutely did not want to be a quarter of a century old.  Now I am rapidly sneaking up on the half century mark, and frankly I couldn't care less.  It doesn't seem real, that is an age reserved for my grandmother and others... now that it is becoming something so close I can touch it, I realize when you are young it seems ancient, when you are there it seems young...

Oh the gray in my hair and the slight wrinkles at the corners of my eyes and on my hands give it away... but there is hair dye for that, and I have had gray in my hair since my teens... so who cares. Honestly, I would love it if it would simply give up pretending and finally switch to the beautiful solid white that was my color of my Grammies.  Instead of holding on to just enough of my ugly brown to make it simply look tired.

As I sit and smell the coffee this morning and think about where I've been and where I am going, I feel pretty good about this aging thing. 

I read my horoscope this morning, I always do, and was comforted by what it said.  "This is a year of completion and transition. It is a time when we need to let go of things that no longer serve their purpose, and hold on to things that have a future. It is a time of cleaning out dead wood, not necessarily for new beginnings." Whew, so relieved there, as that pretty much sums up my feelings and actions this year.  It has been a year of transitions.  I am slowly putting all the bits together for the future, as I weed through the bits of the past, some of it is worth keeping, some of it simply needs to fade into the memories of yesterday. 

I have been almost ruthless with that mind set this year and this is shockingly strange for me.  I  have always been the one holding on, afraid to let the past slide off into itself and move forward.  Maybe it's linked to those silly numbers assigned to me, or maybe it is simply that while I really do refuse to grow up (come on I still wear pink shoes just because!) I have matured....

Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional!  I love that phrase, it is what allows me to be silly with my grand baby, jump on the back of a motorcycle like I am a teen, where my hair too long for my age (can you believe someone said that to me the other day?), start new dreams and build what I hope will be a thriving business some day.... I can't stop that darn clock from ticking off seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years... but how I respond and let it define me is completely up to me... 

So... a toast to 47, it was a good year, a defining year!  And now on to conquer 48... oh what joys, challenges, successes and lessons do you hold in store for me?