Celebrate Growing Older

I have a birthday coming up soon, and I will be 47.  I've said before that in my head I feel 29, but when I look in the mirror, 47 is definitely staring back at me.

When you're a kid, each birthday is looked forward to with great anticipation.  It's exciting to get older and be able to do new things - start kindergarten, drive a car, go to college, enjoy a drink in a club.
  

My 1st Birthday

Happy sweet 16

At a certain point, however, birthdays start to take on a more negative tone.  Among my friends, the consensus seems to be that around the age of 30, nobody really wants to talk about their birthday or how old they are anymore.  We start referring to ourselves as "over the hill", or on the "downward slope to ...". Women especially tend to devalue ourselves the older we get and worry about adding another year on our life calendar.

I used to feel the same.  But I stopped 12 years ago.

Because 12 years ago my dear friend Gretchen passed away.  She was an amazing woman who loved her family and her community and taught me so much about how to live a positive life.  In 2001 she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and within a year she was gone.  
One day I was keeping her company while her husband ran some errands, and I was complaining about my birthday coming up.  Gretchen looked at me and quite firmly told me to stop feeling sorry for myself.  She told me to be proud that I had lived another year, that I had gotten to spend precious time with my family and friends, to grow as a person, to both teach and learn.  "Besides", she smiled, "what's the alternative?  You either get a year older or you aren't here anymore".

So now, every year on my birthday, instead of lamenting about how old I am, or how many more wrinkles or gray hairs I have, I think about how thankful I am that I'm still here. I celebrate another year gone by in which I'm healthy and happy and very lucky to be living my life.   If I do start to get negative, I think about Gretchen and how she would rather be here with us, growing older.

My birthday wish is that all of us celebrate growing older - we are fortunate indeed!