On turning 60

‎"We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned,

so as to have
 the life that is waiting for us.

The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come."

 Joseph Campbell

Today I begin living the seventh decade of my life.  Today I leave my 50’s behind and begin life in my 60’s.  Today, I am 60 years old.  Oh. My. Goodness.

I have lived long enough for seven men to occupy the White House.  1952, the year of my birth, was an election year and Harry Truman turned over the presidential reigns to Dwight Eisenhower.  2012 is also an election year, one which I hope records the reelection of Barrack Obama, our first black president (Before I leave this world, I dream of seeing a woman called Madam President).  In my lifetime, I have witnessed war, from the Cold War to the current protracted War on Terror.  I have viewed rockets leaving our planet taking astronauts and rovers from Cape Canaveral/Kennedy to the sky, the moon, and now to Mars. I have watched the economy rise, fall, and even tank multiple times.  I have observed maps altered and renamed by politics and struggle. I have seen the Berlin Wall fall and our fear of Communism fade, and I have seen houses and waistlines expand as we Americans increased our appetites for more, always more.   I have chatted by telephone on a party line, a wall phone, and a cell phone.  I have been swept along in the tidal wave of the information age and the omnipresence of computers, owning several permutations of personal computers from the first Mac to an iPad.  I have seen backyard gardens morph into living locally.  I have watched styles shift and change and have lived long enough to witness the 50’s become cool again with Mad Men and much of my former wardrobe become classified as “vintage.”

I have given birth and raised three amazing children.  I have buried both of my parents.  I have welcomed three beautiful grandchildren… I have spent a chunk of my life (and soul) in the classroom teaching.  I have cheered in celebration and cried in sorrow.  I have confronted health challenges for me as well as for those I love. 

Life never really stands still, even when we wish it would.  And as I stand on the threshold of a new decade, there are few things I hope remain behind as I move ahead. 

What I wish to shed:

Weighing and measuring myself by a number on scale or by some artificial yardsticks of success

A critical eye and a sharp tongue

A rootless spirit

Our stockpile of stuff

Urgency, fear, worry, and anxiety

Too tight a tether to the virtual world—being too plugged to an illusory world that I check out of the real one

What I hope to hold:

Abiding in the present

Breathing slowly and deeply

Movement of body and mind

Careful living--responsible stewardship of the earth

Laughter

Kindness

Usefulness

Books

Learning

Listening more

Talking less

Finding poetry in the everyday --so much really does depend “upon a red      wheelbarrow”

Love for family and friends

A closer walk and deeper friendship with God so I may come closer this admonition::

He has showed you, O man is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6: 8