Embracing My Forties

The year that I turned 34, my sister in law turned 35.  I remember crying because ‘we’ were getting old.  That has been ten years ago and we are both still going strong.  We haven’t died or anything. 

I don’t know what it is when you’re young, but when you think about forty year olds, they just seem ancient.  It seems that they can’t possibly understand young people or identify with the things that they might be going through.  Never mind the fact that they’ve ‘been there and done that’, surely they’ve forgotten. I remember being a teenager and wondering how it felt to my mom to be so ‘old’.  Now I am older than my mom was at the time that I thought that she was surely close to the end of her days and I still don't 'feel' old.

My Mom, Me, My daughter and my Nanny in the front (several years ago)

Every year on my birthday my husband tells the congregation at our church how old I am.  It doesn’t really matter because our birthdays are in the same month and we are the same age.  He always announces his age on his birthday, or asks me, “Honey, how old are we this year?”  It used to really bother me and I wondered why he had to share my age every single year.  But then something changed.

My husband and I finding out that we would be grandparents.  His look is priceless!

Last year on the 30^th day of June something amazing happened in our family that pretty much changed my life.  My son’s wife gave birth to our first grandbaby.  GRANDbaby! Isn’t that wonderful? 

Our Grand!

We won’t talk about the months that headed up to that moment when I mourned my youth and despised every grandma name imaginable.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want a grandbaby.  It was that I didn’t want to accept the fact that I was old enough to be a grandmother.  I mean, grandmas are old and wrinkly with gray hair and flappy arms and outdated clothes.  That wasn’t me.  (That still isn’t me.) I didn’t want to be associated with that name.  People asked, “What do you want to be called?” My answer?  “Nothing that starts with ‘gran’, nothing that has a ‘maw’ attached, no nanny or granny or mawmaw or any such old-lady sounding name.”  I wanted something different.  I really wanted my name to be ‘Ginga’ (with a hard G), like ‘grandma ninja’, but my husband wouldn’t agree to that.  I thought it was pretty cool though.  LOL  I stressed myself out about a NAME.  (I’m giggly right now, because really?  A NAME?)

Like I said, that day changed my life.  After that moment when people asked me what I wanted to be called, I would say, “We are gonna teach him to call me Lolli, but he can call me anything he wants.”  (Yes, my grandma name is ‘Lolli’ and my husband is ‘Pop’.  Cute right?)  When I looked into his face for the first time, all of a sudden being 42 wasn’t so bad, and being a grandma wasn’t bad either.  In fact, being a grandma was and is about the grandest thing I can imagine. I love my new role and I love my new name. 

The Grand and I around Christmas time.

I don’t worry so much about being ‘old’ anymore.  I have embraced my age.  There is a lot to celebrate, so there’s really not time to be sad that I’m not in my twenties or thirties.  I don’t think I’m missing much to tell you the truth.  I have a great husband, great kids, the most perfect grandbaby ever, a home I love, a job that’s not too stressful, a church that loves me and most of all I have a great God Who treats me better than I deserve.  Sounds like I have a lot to be thankful for, right?  I think we should all embrace our age.  Hey, at least we got to this point.  We have a lot that we can teach those who are younger than we are.  We have experienced things that are beyond their field of vision now, but will be in their future. 

Grand and Pop time.  He loves his Pop and his Pop loves him.

 

I believe the Bible teaches us to embrace our age.

 Psalms 90:12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Titus 2:3-5 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

The daughter and I being ourselves.

Just to name a few, those are verses that teach us to think about how far we’ve come and how we can help others that are coming up behind us.  Everyone has someone younger than them that they can teach.  There are little girls that look up to my 17 year old daughter and want to be like her.  We need to keep that in mind.  There are things that we’ve learned that need to be passed on to others.  (Somebody has got to go through it first.)

We all go through seasons of our lives, and every one of them are great.  Even if you are sick or alone or struggling, you have made it to this point.  If you are a Christian, Jesus is with you. He will help you through anything and everything that you are going through.  If you are not sick, alone or struggling, you’ve got even more to be thankful for. That old song that says, “I’ve got more to go to Heaven for than I had yesterday” is so true and it gets sweeter each day.  I look forward to seeing what God blesses me with in the future, but if He takes me today I’m ready.

I borrowed a blue wig and surprised my hubby with it.  There is always silliness and laughter in our home.

I have learned a very important lesson over the last year and that is to just be content.  Just enjoy every day and be happy in my own skin. 

 

My hubby and I celebrated our 24th anniversary this month.

 Are you embracing your age?  Try it, you might just enjoy it.