I'm too old for this .

Finding myself in the 5th decade of my life has led to a multitude of emotions and not all of them have been positive. Everyone seems to have an opinion. Everyone seems to know me better than I know myself, at least that is what they tell themselves. How much of the real me do they really know and more importantly how many of them take the time to stop and ask anything about me without being all knowing.

I had spent the last year or two constantly telling myself, "I'm too old for ..." and you can only but imagine the long list of things I was too old for. Too old to learn new skills, too old for certain clothes, too old for a new career, too old to travel alone, too old to start something new, too old to make new friends, too old to experience love again.

However, although I had convinced myself that all of the above were valid statements, there was this niggling idea running through my mind telling me that I was as young as I feel. That my face and body may have passed the 50 mile stone but as long as my mindset still focused on my younger self I could get through this. That being said, I constantly had this mental tug of war. The battle between my youthful self and fighting to stay in the realm of youth and the midlife battle that dragged me kicking and screaming to settling for my tea and slippers, accepting that I am older and time to be quiet, to lead a simple life and morph into the sedentary life of a silver surfer.

I was spending so much time nursing my ego and dancing around opinions and judgement of others, that I suddenly hit a brick wall. It suddenly occurred to me that life was not a fork in the road. There are more than two branches to the road on this journey. I am no longer choosing left or right - I choose to go straight ahead. What is straight ahead? Straight ahead is the future. The future is what I decide to make it.

50- ish is not an ending. It is not even the beginning of the end. Fifty is the continuation of the life we plan for ourselves. It is the time in life where we get to put all our experiences and lessons learned to work. It's that time of life when we get to decide what our next phase looks like.

The first phase of life is where we learn. We gather the skills, we remove what didn't serve us and hopefully we are now on the way to making the right decisions, or accepting the choices we once made. We are in the phase of life where the only rules we follow are the rules we set for ourselves. The time when we make better choices and the time when we can be as loud or quiet as we choose.

There are no boundaries except for the boundaries we impose on ourselves. We are the older generation. It could be said that we are setting an example for our children and grand children, so what example do you want to set them? Do you want them to believe that the silver years are quiet and melancholy or do you believe like me that these are the years that we get to be all that we ever dreamed of. All those dreams and desires we never fulfilled up until now because it may have been frowned upon, or wasn't deemed acceptable behavior can now be realized.

We are still responsible human beings, we still have values and morals, but we are also women with heart and soul and if you are like me, you are not ready to be old. We are not yet ready to become what our age is trying to dictate to us. We are moving forward, we are still exploring, we are still living, we are sucking the life out of every moment, we are absorbing every moment. and making every moment count. We are not living in our past or through our children, we are living for our own future.

Lets make our future count. Be remembered for what is yet to be achieved, not what we have already achieved.

xx Lei

YOU ARE ALWAYS ONE CHOICE AWAY FROM A TOTALLY DIFFERENT LIFE. - Xoashdurham