aging | smilingbug

My Dad once told me “getting older is wonderful” (and I wrote about that in a past blog) but I’m starting to think he meant getting wiser is wonderful or getting to the point in your life where you feel on top of your game is wonderful. Jerry Seinfeld’s interview on Howard Stern was rerun recently and he had a refreshing view on aging which I agree with but it also addresses getting wiser and mature but not old in an elderly sense. I’ll paraphrase what he said here: “The war is over… (and) it’s a very nice place to be… If you’re a little lucky in life you should enjoy getting older because you’re gonna see more. When you’re young you can’t see what’s going on so well.  When you’re older (…you say) oh I see what’s going on here.  I love that.” It reminded me of something a friend once told me which was roughly: In your 30’s you’re “am I doing this right?” In your 40’s you’re “I have arrived” and in your 50’s you’re “F–k you.” (a little graphic but you get the point) I believe these concepts are what could be wonderful about getting older. Diane von Furstenberg said in a June 2013 interview with Talk magazine, “Yesterday for lunch I met the most incredible 90-year-old woman…I just thought, Oh, my god, I still have time ahead of me.” -smilingbug

Diane von Furstenberg. Photo by Robyn Twomey.

I phoned my father and right at the start of the call he said “so listen to what is going on here.” I heard the excitement in his voice that I had heard other times, it’s awesome to me in a way that few things are. My heart filled with joy and love for his happiness. How many people in our lives can touch our heart in that way? And what makes it so with some and not so with others? It takes me back to being a small child and it also makes me think of my children and how they view me. Like a lot of people, my parents were larger than life to me when I was a kid. Also like most people, by the time I was an adolescent I started to see them with their strengths and weaknesses. As a grown person, I can admire and feel for them on many levels. Meanwhile I think of my kids’ view of me. It’s a foreign thing to imagine I’m viewed by my children the way my parents were viewed by me, being that I never feel like a grown up no matter how old I am. I remember thinking that my parents looked the same in every old photo when I was a kid. Even if they were ten years old in the photo it seemed the same grown parent I knew was staring back at me in that photo. It’s been said that life is all about relationships and if you think about it, what would this life be without them? -smilingbug