It's time I act my age...

You aren't going to wear that, are you? My twenty-one year old daughter asks as we head out the door for Gavin's Christmas program at school and I slip a thin red satin ribbon necklace over my head. Dangling from the ribbon is a reindeer fashioned with tiny clothespins, red  pipe-cleaners for antlers and a small gold bell around the reindeer's neck.

It makes you look like a grandmother! Emily protests, and I look at her with raised eyebrows and reluctantly remove the reindeer necklace. I don't want to embarrass my daughter, but the truth is, I am a grandmother, and honestly - what's wrong with looking like one?

Two months after my 40th birthday, I look in the mirror one morning and I don't know what it is, but something about the way I look is different and instinctively I know I'm pregnant.

We're relatively new to this rural community and I don't have a doctor yet, and when I make an appointment to meet this new-to-me doctor, my only hope is that he's older. I've been graying since my 20's, but I refuse to be pregnant at 40 and meet a new doctor with all this gray hair, so I color it for the first time in years.

On the way to the exam room in his office, I see the doctor standing in the hallway - fully gray. An older man, for sure, and I breathe a sigh of relief. We discuss the risks of a pregnancy at my age and somewhere in the conversation the doctor tells me his birthday. He's 6 weeks younger than me.

Emily is four months old at Michael's wedding. She's fourteen the year Nick and Casey marry. I'm a grandmother most of her life, but until RA, I'm able to keep up with her and her friend's mothers.

Having a baby in my 40's, I have a foot in multi-generations. From the time Emily is born, I have much in common with women twenty years younger than I am. I care for my elderly  mother in our home while homeschooling Emily, and the homeschooling mothers I fellowship with have children that will be in college and/or married when the mothers are my age, and the women my age have children in college. At the time, none of that matters.

With those twenty-three years of homeschooling squarely behind me, there's little about my life of interest today to younger women with whom I can't keep up.  Most of us prefer relationships with women our age and/or those with similar lifestyles, and I no longer fit in either category with many younger women. I don't travel in the same circles, and when Emily graduated from homeschooling, I moved out of the loop. The transition to a new one has been slow going. I've tried to fit in the old one, but I clearly don't. It's one of those walls I keep hitting my head against.

Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not complaining, neither am I ignoring the mandate for older women to mentor younger women. There are younger women in my life that I know God has placed there for me to encourage, and we learn from each other. I feature and ghostwrite for homeschooling publications, and I'll continue as long as they want me. My door, virtual and otherwise, will always be open, but I'm not going to try to fit in their circles. Along with my willingness to teach younger women, they need to be teachable and want a relationship with me. In the words of the Yankee sage, Yogi Berra...

If they don't want to come {to the baseball field}, you can't stop them.  

I've been rambling these thoughts about for a while - as my friend and mentor Patsy Clairmont would say, "between my two brain cells." They influence the goals I've set for the days ahead here on Pollywog Creek - goals I'll share more about in the future.

In the meantime, it's time I act my age with pride and gratitude for God's faithfulness to me over these sixty-two years, and without apologies for my gray hair, wrinkles and grandmotherly attire.

Anyone care to join me?

I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD, forever;
with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.  Psalm 89:1 ESV
{Photos - more Pollywog Creek backyard in this way-too-early spring}

How not to go over the hill...

There's no such thing as "over the hill," I tell my friend Diana in a comment I wrote earlier this week. We're all on the same journey toward home. There's no turning back, just moving forward. Some of us are closer to home than others, but wherever we are, all any of us have is today.

Last week I attended the funeral of a woman, who, if she had lived just one more month, would be celebrating her 101st birthday this weekend. I never saw her go over a hill. I never witnessed a moment when her life became less vibrant or significant. If anything, she grew more lovely, more treasured, and more full of grace. 

I wish I'd embraced my age long ago. Rather than being coy about it, I should have announced my 40th, 50th or 60th birthday with joy and gratitude for God's faithfulness over the years and for the grace He gives - one day at a time. 

I wish I'd been less peer-group-focused and valued the council of the women I knew who were further down this sinuous path and whose wisdom could help me navigate where they've already traveled. 

My declaration to act my age isn't a resignation, but a thanksgiving that the LORD has allowed me to become a woman of a certain age. There will be just as much to rejoice and celebrate at my 90th birthday {should the LORD leave me here that long} as there was at my first. 

To my dear girlfriends from 18 to 100: let go of those ties to the years past and those fabled hills that try to make you feel old, with gratitude embrace each day and year God gives, and hold onto {treasure} the girlfriends of every age that He brings into your life. 

Love well, listen attentively, learn from those who walk around you and pick up those who stumble. Lets live this one life well together. 

So tell me, if you will...how many years has the LORD given you?

{Photos - more Pollywog Creek backyard and around the pond this week}

Bet you didn't know...

Bet you didn't know I'm a 40-something mid-western mom.

In my ghostwriting gig, that is.

For over two years I've been writing from inside the mythical head of a woman with a date on her birth certificate, if she had one, that's about twenty years after the date on mine. She also lives where there are four distinct seasons, as opposed to the two we have here in deep south Florida.

Most of the time I can wing it. That's what it means to be creative, right?  But one month last year I was asked to write about family fun in the snow, and that's when I had nothing - nadda - to draw from. I suggested {begged for} a revised assignment.

Wing it or not, I never trust only in my own experiences. Extensive research is part of every assignment, and sometimes {often} that research points out the mistakes I made when I was a 40-something southern living mom with children still at home to nurture. Such is the case for the article I'm working on now.

I was recently asked by a different project manager to write an article for younger moms on what I would do differently. If I contemplate all my regrets and mistakes too long, I'm not sure I can keep the word count below what would fill the pages of a book.

That's one of the problems I have with this information age. There's too much information and an over-abundance of inspiration. It can be paralyzing. Unless I'm searching for something specific, I stopped looking at Pinterest months ago. I want to do everything - every craft, recipe, home decorating idea and fashion tip. I wish I'd done everything years ago, and I can easily feel lower than a snake's belly that I didn't.

But for grace.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Philippians 3:12-16 ESV

Did you catch that? Those of us who are mature think this way.

I did say it was time I act my age.

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Oscar Wilde

{PHOTOS - more spring, with those painted buntings, this week on Pollywog Creek}

The Golden Years - Healthy Aging and the Older Adult::a review

Gray hair is a crown of glory;
it is gained in a righteous life.
Proverbs 16:31, ESV

A couple of months ago, I reviewed Christopher Bogosh's Compassionate Jesus - Rethinking the Christian's Approach to Modern Medicine. As I mentioned in that review, Bogosh offers his unique experience and insights to the discussion of health care in both the medical field – from his training as a medic in the Army to a career in intensive care nursing, as well as a degree in theology and a call to the pastorate that led to a ministry in hospice and palliative care. It’s this experience that inspired the biblical model for health care that he encourages Christians to consider, as well as his thoughts on healthy aging and both the medical and spiritual perspective on growing older and meeting the needs of older adults in his recently released The Golden Years - Healthy Aging & The Older Adult.

The Golden Years - Healthy Aging & The Older Adult is a book for all adults who desire to age as healthy as possible and to prepare for the changes that accompany aging, as well as those who are responsible for or care about the well-being and care of older adults in their family, neighborhood, church or community. In other words, it's a book for all of us. 

While he does not claim The Gold Years to be an exhaustive resource, with a Biblical worldview, Bogosh does an excellent job of covering a wide range of topics in 125 pages with chapters covering topics from the characteristics of the elderly population, the normal process of aging, healthy aging, preventative healthcare, the management of healthcare in the older adult, common health issues, and chronic health problems and management. He carefully describes and differentiates between  the kinds of dementia seen in older adults, as well as the prognosis and treatment specific to each kind. In his descriptions of all the health issues, Bogosh uses vocabulary that is easy to understand for the average adult unfamiliar with medical terminology.  

Some of Bogosh's topics - including certain legal issues and concerns, Medicare, and the effects of The Affordable Care Act (which Bogosh appears to support) on the aging population - are more applicable to citizens of the United States. 

Bogosh reminds us that practicing preventative healthcare and wise planning for our healthcare needs as we age is both good stewardship of our body and shows respect and love for those who will be responsible for meeting our needs if we are not able to do so in the future.

Bogosh states that the ideal care setting for older adults, with or without dementia, is at home with a dedicated caregiver, and I wholeheartedly agree, but he also offers a few words of caution. 

Some Christians translate Paul's warning to care for family members (I Timothy 5.8) as a mandate to provide twenty-four-hour-hands-on nursing care for spouses or parents, even when they do not know how to provide it. This is a wonderful opportunity to serve in love, but there is no honor if the care is unsafe, neglectful, and potentially harmful to the older adult with dementia. p. 107

Bogosh encourages caregivers to be aware of their limitations, to use the multiple resources available to them, and recommends the services of hospice, regardless of the healthcare setting, for the older adult in the last stages of dementia. 

My mother frequently commented that "growing older ain't for sissies." Focusing on the process of aging and the potential healthcare needs of the older adult is not the most encouraging read, but an important one; and as Bogosh reminds us with frequent references to the gospel throughout, Christ is our hope, and Christians can "live out the 'golden years' with the glory of God in view." (p. 125)

I was provided with a complimentary copy of The Golden Years by Cross-Focused Reviews in exchange for my honest opinion.