AN AGED MIND OVER MATTER

“Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.” ~Leroy "Satchel" Paige

And I never used to mind. When I turned 40 I received a birthday card referring to somebody by the name of “old bag.” Didn’t bother me a bit. At 50 someone commented that I didn’t look it. Made my day. At 60 I subscribed to Satchel Page’s theory that age didn’t matter if I didn’t mind. I didn’t. Uh-huh.

But on May 16 the child I prayed for, the fruit of my youth, my first-born baby... turns forty years old. What?  Angie, 40? I have already been a mom for 14,600 days, plus a couple extra days thrown in for Leap Year? Now, that, my friends makes me feel my age just a wee little bit. Nixon’s resignation, People magazine, the Happy Days and Little House on the Prairie TV shows, Hank Aaron’s record breaking homerun – I get that those things are now 40 years old, but my little girl?

Why, if I close my eyes I can see the 21 year old me lying on the ob/gyn able at the US Army Hospital in West Berlin, Germany, listening with joy as Dr. Ali Arban pronounces in his thick Turkish accent, “You arrrre o-fic-ially prrregnant.” I remember the first time the 22 year old me saw my beauty’s newborn face on May 16, 1974. I watch again in my mind as my mom, fresh off a trans-Atlantic flight to get to her granddaughter, rushes straight past me to grab that little 3 month old and hug her to her chest with all her might. Seems, as the “old folks” say, just yesterday. I can’t believe it.

That may well be, but it’s a fact that I am now two years into my 7^th decade of life. My creaky knees believe it and my popping hips agree; I can’t do the “sit down on the floor without using your arms, cross your legs and get back up again the same way” test or “you’re likely to die in 5 years” thing. If this test is true I should have been long expired already since this ability hasn’t been even a prayer of mine since...since...when exactly? I fight the never-ending battle of turning grey hairs back to the blond ones that never really were. Label directions on a bottle of headache remedy are an indecipherable blur without a magnifying glass or pair of reading glasses; and speaking of those specs, I buy them in bulk nowadays. Get the picture? I was going to add that it was not a pretty picture, but as I sit and think about it, I think I have changed my mind. (No, not lost it. I said, changed it!)

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that “the years teach much which the days never knew.” I wouldn’t, if I could, go back to myself at 22. All my years have taught me many valuable lessons, and are still working at teaching me. But, if I could, I would tell that girl to slow down, worry less, enjoy more and savor the day. I would remind her to read and ponder Isaiah 46:4: “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Oh, my, I’m grateful for the truth of that!

There’s a huge difference between feeling old, thinking old, and being old. Victor Hugo said that “40 is the old age of youth and 50 is the youth of old age.” Caryn Leschen quipped that “35 is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.” Whatever old age is, I am determined that this grateful granny will be a Psalm 92 fresh, green, old age fruit bearer. (Go find your reading glasses and look it up!)