Today is the 26th of July and it is raining again. Thank Goodness! I was actually cold as I came into work this morning. I never think of putting on a jacket or sweater, because we’ve had so much heat that the last thing I’d think of would be some kind of wrap. It feels as though I’ve lost half of the summer between the heat and the early rain. I’ve already started thinking of fall, and I didn’t get everything done that I had planned for summer. I often make big plans that I never get carried out because the weather is not conducive to what I’ve planned. I’ve learned to be flexible but this year has felt like I’ve really fallen behind in gardening particularly. Oh well! In the big scheme of life it is not major and another year will be here before I’ve become too unhappy about completing the tasks I’d planned.

As I get older I often find that what I thought was important to do doesn’t seem at all important if I don’t have time or even when I have time and don’t want to do it. I know my priority in life is not my house or even my yard. My son, Jason, is my first priority and I often pick up coffee from DD, which he likes, and I stop by his house after I’ve gone to my class at the Riverplex. And my second priority is a nap which I feel I have earned no matter how busy I’ve been. I had a good friend who was a member of my church and who lived to be 110, and who told me she had taken a nap every day after she turned 65. So, I do not plan to live that long and do not want to, but certainly think a nap is important. I had a member of my water exercise class who couldn’t understand how I could nap every day. She said if she napped during the day she couldn’t sleep at night. I know I have read many different studies about sleep, and I know if you can sleep at night after taking a nap you need that sleep. Well, I can and I’m taking that nap. I know our bodies are all very different, and we have to learn out own body’s rhythms and follow them.

Today, yesterday and tomorrow is our church’s rummage sale, and I will work on Saturday morning and miss my arthritis exercise at the Riverplex, but the sale is more important at this time. It seems that I more and more reason out what I should be doing at any given time and have learned priorities are often very different as we reach our “Golden Years” whatever that means. A friend told me that they are called that because our pee becomes golden because of all the pills we take. But whatever! We do generally become much more calm and serene. I think it is because we have lived through so many smaller problems and even tragedies. We begin to realize that getting upset, anxious or even ill may not be the best response, but to realize that in the ‘Big Picture’ it may not be so major and are then able to take some long breathes and not lose our cool.

I am discovering that getting ‘older’ is not so major, but gives me an excuse to be more peaceful, thoughtful and wise. I have so often heard old age equated with wisdom in many different cultures, and I find that more true as I reach those “Golden Years” myself. I wish that our American Culture could also learn that and give more respect to the elders among us. We are such a youth culture with so many ads depicting the young, slim and beautiful. I know that the slimness has proved tragic for many young girls, because they think they should be as thin as models they see and eating disorders often stem from this anxiety. I do not color my hair; I’ve earned it along with the wrinkles, but am amazed at how many women do as their hair begins to turn grey. I guess beauticians make a great deal of money dyeing hair and providing facials and other cosmetic care. I guess they need their jobs, so maybe that will always be. It’s like my husband, Jack, who used to say when I became irritated with seeing limousines. I always thought it was conspicuous consumption, but he maintained that it provided people with jobs. He was probably right.

I do know that setting priorities at this age is much different than when I was young, but of course our lives are so different, and we are at a totally dissimilar place. When I had a family at home I cooked, washed and ironed, cleaned and drove my children many different places. Now it is just me and I decide when and where I am and what I need to do. Even need is not a good word, because I don’t need to do anything on schedule as I did with kids who went many different directions. Of course I do have a few routines, like work, exercise and appointments, but nothing like when my children were home. Now I decide what I eat, when I shop, go to the movies or whatever. I realize it is the most independent we are as humans except the years we get out of University and are finding a career and getting established.

It is quite good to have these different phases and I am enjoying this one immensely. And of course I have lots of time to read which even takes precedence over housekeeping which I dislike. Housework has always been my least favorite occupation because it is so repetitive. This month I read a sack of books that one of Jason’s friend’s mother gave him for me. There was a Grafton and an Evanovich which I had not read, and they are two of my favorite women fiction writers. Thanks Marjorie