Never Mind When I'm 65, How About When I'm 100

Don’t laugh, but I plan to live to be 100.  And not the sitting in the rocker waiting for a card from the President 100, but a yoga-practicing, blog-writing, trail-walking 100.  In order for this to happen, I first have to successfully deal with being in my fifties.  Here’s what I’ve found so far:

I take Level 2 yoga classes with relative ease, except I need reading glasses to sign the release form.  I can be pleasantly surprised when I look in the mirror, as long as I’ve been using my heavy-duty nighttime moisturizer, and avoid glancing down at my neck.  I thoroughly enjoy my kale and white bean soup now that I don’t have to cajole a 4-year-old into trying it. 

There is nowhere near as much time in the day as I thought there’d be.  I don’t work “full-time” but I work “crazy-time”, so my days are a chopped-up mish-mash of hours.  Keeping my schedule straight is what I do instead of crossword puzzles to keep my brain alert. 

Instead of hanging out with the parents of my kids’ friends, I now hang out with the people I do yoga with.  Luckily for me, that includes my mom and sisters, so I get to see them regularly.

I am WAY less shy than I used to be, and can easily strike up a conversation with just about anyone.  And I’m always willing to try something new because my fear of appearing foolish has vanished along with my smooth hands. 

What is your favorite part about your age decade?  

I just had them . . .

So, a woman walks into the living room. She stops, looks around, and leaves. Ten seconds later she strides back in, eyes focused on her objective – reading glasses.  She puts them on, pushes them up on top of her head, and walks back out, a satisfied smile on her face.  She enters the dining room and sits at the table, newspaper spread out in front of her.  She looks around, frowning. Now where are those d**n reading glasses?

Sound familiar?  No, it’s not age causing these moments of forgetfulness, it’s a brain filled to bursting with tasks, calendars, laundry, and dinner needing to be made – not to mention that rather strange comment left by a friend on your Facebook post.  What did she mean by that, anyway?

Too much activity in the brain, and something has to give; something has to move to the back of the line.  I could suggest you eliminate some of your activities, but who am I kidding – except for the laundry, you enjoy your busy life.  So how about this experiment:  As you move from one activity to the next, take one full, deep, mindful breath. Like when you get in the car.  Inhale, exhale; drive.  When you sit in front of the computer, breathe in deeply, let it out, then wake up the monitor.  Before opening the fridge to take out the pork chops, take a huge lungful of air.  Instead of each event fighting it out for your attention, a mindful separation of tasks may help your brain sort things out peacefully.

Now, take a slow, deep breath, then go to the drugstore and buy a chain for your reading glasses.  It’s fashionable, I swear!

Breathing deeply between a hike and dinner.  Ahhhh....