This month I turn 60. I know it’s crazy. I know there must be a mistake on the birth certificate or worldwide calendar or maybe I have just woken after a 20 year bout of amnesia. But if I really believe that then I am selling so very short what the years have brought me.
I certainly don’t feel old but I do feel lived in. I feel comfy in this skin that has carried three beautiful sons, swum countless kilometres in early morning swims, cried myself to sleep in times of sadness and felt the wind on my face in the most remote parts of the globe. I have experienced adventure in the Developing World and dealt with every-woman issues in my home, work, friendship and church contexts.
And now that I have reached 60, I am truly beginning to live in a new way. With freedom, passion and hopefully, a lot more wisdom than my twenty year old self. She did a good job, a great job at times, but she didn’t have the lessons of life that ask you to step back from your history, your personality and your circumstances. To make peace with your emotions and weigh up your reactions. To dig deep into your emotional tank and find empathy, restraint and compassion, to add to your courage.
Turning 60 is a privilege. It’s a nod to the world that growing older is one of life’s anomalies. That an ageing exterior is inconsistent with the person you cannot see, for she is more alive than ever before.
A beautiful recognition of years loved. Your reflection is so apt and such a true statement of growing older with grace.
‘ That an ageing exterior is inconsistent with the person you cannot see, for she is more alive than ever before.’
Enjoy your birthday month! ❤️❤️????????
This is beautiful sentiment and I concur
I’m getting there almost 56…
I am faced with my resignation over how many times that someone’s else’s need wants indulgences continue to be placed before me.
I am aware that I am resentful that what I’d like to add, my knowledge, continues to be cast aside because my voice (that I hear loudly in my head) is talked over dismissed or shut down
I’m still working on making my peace with myself for my choosing to be invisible
Kels you have excelled yourself with this affirmation of yourself …The brilliant journalistic mind of your maternal Grandfather has been reborn in you…I wish you had known him…You would have been such great friends.
Your mother was so proud of you and so am I….you are very special to me…we both grieve and talk with deep affection about a mother/sister whom we loved so deeply.
I have passed the great six oh! 4 years ago.
It was a rather painful passing as ageism really does exist, even though I don’t feel or look my age. The world’s view on aging exists in its fullness.
Yes, I may take a little gulp when I accidentally pass by a mirror and wonder who she is and what happened haha. I also recognize im great for my age.
I have many battle scars and plenty of badges of honor to balance my life out, both within and without.
I’m grateful and pleased as well as regretful. I do say the ridiculous, ” oh I wished I knew then what I know now”. .
It is all of these things. It is a WHOLE life.
It is so important throughout ones life, to live in the moment but seems more so, now. I have a huge past. I have a future that frightens and worries me a bit. But now is OK.
Right now, it really is, okay.