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November 2009 
What, for you, has been the best thing about getting older?
Posted on Nov 2nd, 2009
by 
tinkonthebrink
tinkonthebrink
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for November 02, 2009:
Don't you all have this fantasy about going back in time and getting a re-do with the benefit of what you know now? I mean, countless movies are based on this idea, it's gotta be pretty universal. Anyway, I know I have it. Sometimes I have the conversation that I wish I would have had with someone I haven't seen for years, if only I knew then what I know now. But the thing is, I'm still having the real-time conversations where I only know what I know now, no matter what age I am, and later on I'm sure I'm going to want a re-do for some of these too. That whole thing about how you can't step in the same river twice and all - I know by the time I get my other foot in it's all changed. So all in all, I think the best thing about getting older is continuing to be alive and getting to have more experiences, make more mistakes, have more imaginary conversations in the future where I tell myself how I could have been so much more clever in this moment, step into more rivers just that one time. It's just getting more days, more kisses, more joy, more sun on skin and chilly mornings and more warming up the cold blankets with body heat at night, more conversations and books to read and music to hear and more time to maybe learn to juggle or ride a unicycle. The best thing about getting older is the time involved, and everything that holds. Just more. I don't ever want to leave.
Access: Public
Oh, I couldn't wait to read this! The subject matter could have gone in any direction and I knew it would be just right…
Do you think, when you look back on 'what could have been if only'… you realize you didn't do so bad as you thought in the moment you did it?
Remember how terrible it was when you had to go to school with really bad hair and you thought you would die? Or the kid on the bus made fun of you and you thought you would die? Or you tripped going up the stairs to gym class and you thought you were going die?
Then, sometime in your 20's, you realized that no matter how embarrassed you were there was never going to be 'a hole to crawl into' nor were you ever going to 'die from embarrassment'.
And now… it's all about getting to be alive no matter how embarrassing that moment or how cold the sheets are when you first jump into bed!
Isn't getting old grand?! (okay, I'm sure I'll live to be old enough to regret saying that!)
There really are only a few memories that make me cringe and I think they all revolve around drunken sex-capades with boys that didn't deserve me. I love being older and while I wasn't always very happy growing up, I don't feel the that urge to change much. All that stuff made me who I am today and I'm really falling in love with that person. So that's cool.
If I could change one thing though, it wouldn't be not sleeping with my neighbor junior year in college. It would be getting my young body back. Until about 10 years ago I had a smoking hot body, no matter what I ate, with no exercise or effort on my part. I sure would like that body back. I'd put it to much better use ; )
Amber, I can't even remember what the things were that I shed tears over and wallowed in angst about when I was adolescent. Or even a bit older. They seemed so important at the time, obviously…
Lil, the upside though is that now your body is forcing you to consider what you put in it in order to be smoking hot, which is really an advantage. It's possible to have a great looking body that's fueled with really unhealthy stuff if your metabolism is cooperative, but it isn't possible to put on pounds eating just the truly healthy stuff. So think of it as your body prompting you to do right by it maybe?