You're Aging Well

In five days I will turn 45. How did this happen? It seems like yesterday when I...

• Learned how to play the guitar (35 years ago)
• Left for college (27 years ago)
• Went to Japan (23 years ago)
• Met Mike (22-1/2 years ago)
• Left Japan and got engaged (20 years ago)
• Got married and started working at CH (19 years ago)
• Bought our first house (16 years ago)
• Had Christopher (13 years ago)
• Moved to southwest Portland (10 years ago)
• Had Kieran and got to witness the miracle of my twin nephews' birth (6 years ago)
• Got a mandolin (5 years ago!)
• Got the second shock of my life and discovered I was pregnant again at the age of 41 (3-1/2 years ago)
• Started this blog (2 years ago)

I'm not the type to sit around moping and feeling sorry for myself. In fact, the single most scary thing for me about growing older is not me dying, but losing my parents, mother-in-law, and other loved ones. But sometimes I do look critically in the mirror, at my stomach "pouch" and wrinkled brow...or at clothing I could have worn as an 85-pound 17-year-old that would look so horrible on me now...and I feel my age. On the other hand, I feel more confident and sure of myself approaching 45 than I did when I was younger. I feel incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful and loving husband, family, friends, and wide community. And even though I wouldn't have imagined myself staying in this profession and industry for this long, in the past year I have come to realize how much I really love my job and how lucky I am that I get paid to write, edit, and develop policies and tools. Life is good indeed.

Tonight we are going to see one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Dar Williams, and this is her tribute to growing older gracefully: