As I was
leaving the gym after teaching my Spin class I heard one young woman behind me
say to her friend, “I just turned eighteen so I’m just getting used to being eighteen.”
I turned around to see two very lovely young women. They looked so young and so
naïve. I thought to myself, “I’m trying to get used to the fact that I am almost
old enough to get on Medicare and collect my SSI!
I can tell
you a blink ago I was eighteen. At eighteen you are consider an adult and now responsible
for your actions. But eighteen is very young. What do you know of the world at eighteen?
Most young people are still under the care of their parents unless you were
like me and on your own at eighteen.
I knew nothing
of the world and so set out to learn in the school of hard knocks. Unsheltered
and naïve I stumbled and made many mistakes. But somehow back then it all
seemed right. Everyone was a bit more mature, a lot less privileged and
searching to be free. After all we were the hippie generation with free love
and peace. Ahh… to live in the ideals of
youth!
I wanted to stop and ask the young lady what she
was adjusting to? But I didn’t. Was it the
number eighteen, her new found adultness or the fact that she is so young and beautiful
and her whole adult life is ahead of her? I’m adjusting also to my number, my senior-ness
and looking at my life as more behind me than in front of me.
But would I
be eighteen again? No, the angst of maturing through life is something I don’t
want to repeat. I’m rather comfortable in my own skin and rather wise to the world.
I’m not questioning. I’m appreciating where I have been, where I am at and
where I hope to go.
I’m just getting
used to the number that comes with being a senior citizen.
Doctor Lynn
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