As I look back on the seasons of my life I have to laugh at how many changes aside from bone density and joint pain have occurred.
Aside from the body breaking down, our whole perspective seems to shift. I was listening to a reel from a podcast the other day. This therapist was saying that up until the mid to late 40's, during the healthiest parts of our lives, we are the most stressed, the most exhausted, and the most frustrated in all of our years. That in fact, it is once we are in likely the unhealthiest time of our lives, our last 30 or 40 years of living that we are the most settled, the happiest, and the most at peace.
I firmly believe this analysis is correct. I have experienced it for myself. Some mornings when I get out of bed I literally have to stand for a moment to make sure everything woke up with me before I move. And sure enough, some mornings a knee or hip is still sleeping away. These days a good night's sleep is more important than going to a party. A good walk is more rewarding than a shopping spree. And curling up with a good book is more relaxing than going to a movie theater.
I am nowhere near the young girl I once was. I remember like it was yesterday spouting off that I did not drink coffee. That was for old people. But the other morning when our electricity was shut off for repairs, we had not brewed our a.m. pot, and I felt a mild panic attack building. And the days of only carrying a small pocketbook have been replaced by a suitcase size purse that I could live out of if stranded on an island for several days. That cute suitcase has become a lifeline.
Years ago, I would put my mother's purse on top of the refrigerator when she came to visit because a grandmother's purse was in the top ten household hazards ,right up there with the oven cleaner and Lysol under the sink with the baby proof lock.
Clay and I have now arrived with enough blood pressure meds, beta blockers, statins, and Prozac to sink a ship. And yet, I still agree that with the meds and caffeine keeping us going, we are in the happiest season of our lives when looking at the big picture.
The therapist was making the point that if people could realize this at an earlier stage in their lives, they may be able to better enjoy those earlier years while they are still healthy and vibrant. But the point he missed is that those are the years we’re building a career to pay for the children's college, the mortgage, the cars that need insurance.
We are mapping out a life with a houseful of children who will be adults building their own careers one day and they will putting our purse on top of the refrigerator when we come to visit. They are in those years we were once in when our mothers would chuckle and say, "You will laugh about this one day." And you are convinced there will never be laughter again when the tax bill arrives.
But then one day you do. With bones popping, a crick in your neck from sleeping funny, and an ankle that is slightly swollen for no reason at all, you find yourself at peace watching the plants grown in the garden. You see the stress exuding from your grown children raising their own children and you remember it well as you see them off, taking an aspirin for your heart and an ibuprofen for your joints.
And you get to wave them back to their unavoidable stress called a rite of passage to one day deliver them to a nice hot cup of coffee and a well-deserved sigh. You can't give them that peace. It has to arrive with the changing seasons.
