It doesn't seem like there is much time between getting your children through the teen/young adult years before your parents are going through the senior years. The funny thing is, I don't know that they are all that different.
During the teen years, you are trying to figure out who you are, where you belong in the world, what you have to offer the world and the interesting balance between freedom and responsibilities. It seems to be the same in the senior years.
Yesterday I had lunch with a good friend who is in her seventies. Just as I am re-evaluating my life in my fifties, she is in her seventies. She shared that she is not ready to go yet. I enthusiastically said, "That's great. Now what are you going to do?" She shared some of her project ideas and then she started sharing some of the difficult aspects of aging. She feels that in your senior years the world tells you you aren't valuable anymore, you can't do this or that anymore, and you can't make responsible decisions. The initial sassy part of me responds with, "What? Who is saying that? Blow it off." Yet, there is another side of me...the practical side.
As I age, I have to realize that there are tasks that will become more difficult for me. I am not going to say that I can't do them anymore, I will just have to do them differently. As with so many disabilities, you have to focus on changing how you can do something because you can't do it the same way any longer.
A good friend lost a leg from an accident. He didn't have to stop skiing, he just had to do it differently. A friend lost his ability to walk. He still gets every where he wants to go, he just has to do it differently. Other friends have lost some of their memory. It is not that they can't, they may just have to remember with the help of a piece of paper and a pencil.
As we age we may find ourselves in the "special needs" category because we need support in ways we didn't before. I am going out on a limb here, but we are the ones that can disable ourselves, however, by our response. Are we going to focus on the "I can't" or the "Hmmm....how can I do it now? What are my options? What tools do I need? What is the safest avenue for me to do this for me and the people around me?As we age, we need to empower ourselves with the understanding that we still can, we just have to do it differently. We still have what the world needs, it just may be in a different form.
So...if you are aging, don't listen to the world, rather listen to yourself and to God. I think we all have legacies we want to leave in this world and God has all the possibilities available to us.
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