You are four years from seventy. Your upper lip looks like a fine-tooth comb, your forehead is like a wrinkled sheet, your skin is blotched like a fishnet stocking, you are as dry as the Sahara desert and you have hardware mounted in your mouth for teeth. It doesn’t get better than that as the day goes on. It is unsettling.

Birthdays can be a day of celebration of the year you had or the year you are anticipating. Or a day of absolute self-pity for what you did not have and will not have as you age. And that, my friend, is where we have the choice to look at our wrinkles as something to live with or iron out.  It is easier to live with the self-pity than sit up straight and pretend things are good. Spin it happy and you can try that optimistic philosophy, but it doesn’t always work with Birthdays. Birthdays bring up pasts, presents and futures. Sometimes they just do not bring up happy. And throwing a full-fledged pity party is the best option on the table with antipasto and adult beverages. Do not hold back on the punch of impact you want this party to produce.

The spirit in which you want this pity party to take on is a full-fledged one of hopelessness and despair for getting old and looking like a wrung-out dishrag. Dwelling on all the regrets and should of, could of, and I should haven’t scenarios can keep your party rolling for a while. Stock up on supplies. The regrets, the should of and the could of are like pebbles in a running riverbed. Too many to count and washed over with too much running water to remember them all. Now you say, Stop, it could not be all that bad. Could it be? Really to throw a pity party? Growing old isn’t like a wrung-out dishrag. Regrets and should of, could of are not that plentiful. There truly must be a spirit of joy and appreciation for living a full life as we age, even with physical limitations and aging factors. There probably is another side. A kinder way to look at growing old. Growing gracefully with an ageless soul. When you look at your face, your body, and your mind, you see wisdom in the wrinkled forehead and knowledge from the upper lip. And sweet memories shared of friendships forged throughout the years like pebbles in a riverbed. There is still youthfulness in those memories. Still more joy and desires are being felt every day for the first time. There is more to come as we age. Whether our bodies go with us is another story. That’s the catch. The disconnect. But, overall, the day started off with a grand plan of a gusto pity party. And looped around to a realization that I could survive growing old. So, I guess the pity party is too harsh for me to really throw this year. However, I was really feeling it at the beginning of this day. But as I thought about it. I have experienced much joy, kindness, and gratitude on my journey of sixty-six years; my passive teeth, static hearing and dishrag body will have to accept with silence, peace, joy, and much gratitude for that part of the trip. The pity party is on hold. The party’s refreshments are now being used for a gratitude gathering. We will try day by day to be joyful. But it won’t be easy and sometimes not fun. But Happy Birthday. Until next year. 

https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/book-reviews/view/28450/ageless-soul

Ageless Soul by Thomas Moore

https://thomasmooresoul.com/books/

I do not know this bookstore, but I know this book. It is interesting regarding aging.