We begin again.....

60 was bad. Some of you may remember that. (What I know)  It brought us all together here after all.

So,  when my friend, Paula, and I were discussing my approaching 65th birthday, she wanted to know what I had in mind to celebrate. "You must do something," she said. "It's a special one!" Of course, I'm the one who doesn't start thinking about events until the last possible second; Paula, on the other hand, plans events for a living. She won. I threw myself a party last night to celebrate,with a Retro Chinese Buffet at a local Asian restaurant. We had a great time. I'm glad she prevailed.

The point, though, is this: I was willing to acknowledge this birthday. I've settled into the decade nicely, I think.

But I have missed my monthly "thing I've never done before," after a year's hiatus. It adds a sense of anticipation and excitement that is often dulled as we age, a way to challenge ourselves just when we begin to think we've done it all. We haven't. Not by a long shot; it may take some time to come up twelve new things to do, but that's part of the mental gymnastics that go along with the actual activities.

I learned to dance, I tried a hookah lounge, tiled in my kitchen, had my palm read, and went on cruises, just to name a few of the roads I traveled when I did this before. (See more here.) Sometimes I was scared. Often I was nervous. But always I was exhilarated and I learned a lot about myself as a person, regardless of my age. I recommend it to anyone, no matter THEIR age.

I missed it last year. Not right at first; it was actually kind of a relief to not have to come up with something each month. But I realize now that it added a great deal to my life, and I'm ready to begin again. Are YOU ready?

The road ahead....

Stay tuned!

Be your biggest competitor - challenge yourself each day to 

be better than you were yesterday. Kaoru Shinmon

 

Have you hookahed?

The place filled quickly, smoke hanging in the air from the hookahs sitting on the floor next to nearly every table. Sweetness instead of stench, that's one thing I noticed about this smoke, the thing that made it tolerable to even be there. We ate stuffed grape leaves and meat pies while a belly dancer, no wait, an EXOTIC belly dancer according to the menu, shimmered and shimmied around us accompanied by strange, unusual, wonderful music. And something I had never done before.

That was the point, the first of my 12 adventures into the unknown in 2011. For new readers of this blog, I learned of this oral tradition out of the Pyrennes from a book I'm reading called The Second Half of Life by Angeles Arrien. The point is to reivigorate as we age instead of getting old, stagnating, dying to life before our lives even end.

Here's what I learned leading up to the evening at the hookah lounge: It IS hard to find new things to put on my calendar. But that requires mental effort, one of the very points of this exercise. And it demands that I get out of the house! I love my home, where I am enveloped in softness and music and flowers, so I tend to get stuck there, not wanting to leave it for much of anything. Getting OLD.

I also enjoyed anticipating something again, a feeling that has become foreign, remote, as I've aged. It's why time flies for us, whirling faster and faster as the years tick by for us. I remember what it was like waiting for Santa to come when I was a kid. Would the weeks NEVER pass, I thought as I stood in front of the calendar, tapping my foot impatiently, waiting and waiting for the days to disappear? This week I revisited a bit of that joyous anticipation. 

Next month....rock climbing?

The second half of life is the ultimate initiation.

Angeles Arrien