Reflections on becoming 59

Happy Birthday to me! I never thought I would REALLY be 59 years old! Actually, thank goodness it’s not bad. I actually enjoy growing older (gradually, please), and don’t really wish I could be younger.

I guess each stage of life has its good and bad points.

One think I don’t like about growing older is this feeling of a lack of time. It really focuses you on what is important-or at least what SHOULD be important. However, I still manage to lose myself in dithering and doing minor tasks.

I don’t mean sitting on my back patio and hearing the wind blow through the trees and hear the cicadas buzz (if that is the right word) in the background. That is one of the essentials! I will enjoy Summer while it is here! I especially enjoy sitting on my back patio in the morning and reading the paper and drinking coffee!

I’m not sure where I thought I would be at 59 years old when I was a child. I can remember thinking of it as such a vague idea, somehow a concept that would never develop.

Thank goodness “60 is the new 40” (or maybe even the new 30). I still ride my bike, walk every morning, enjoy dancing and otherwise enjoy life. I think where I was even 20 years ago and a lot happened in that time!

I think 39 ½ probably bothered me more than anything, probably more to do with some major changes I was going through as much as being 39 ½. 40 didn’t bother me, although I still have the button “40 isn’t old if you’re a tree”. 50 was a breeze (I had just gotten married!) and the fifties flew, although actually I still have one year left!

I’m not really looking forward to retirement. I enjoy my work too much. I figure I will retire in 2016, which will mean I can “walk on the stage” in 2015 to receive my 40 year certificate (40 years in City Management, although not all of it was as City Manager) and then retire after the Holidays. (The worst part of the year for me is February and March, and, to some degree April, since it seems to take forever for it to get warm.)

Such are the reflections on becoming 59 years old.