Countdown to Sixty

Ten years ago, tomorrow, I turned 50,

jumped out of an airplane 12,000 feet above the earth

 and jumped right into the second half of my life.

How could I know, as my parachute (and the large man on my back)
carried me over the sheep farms of New Zealand,

where the years ahead would take me!

The past ten years have been filled with so much activity...

so much love and fun...

the icing on the cake for this wonderful and full life I have lived.

I have no idea how it happened that 60 years of my life has passed.

(And I know my Mom would say she can't believe she has a daughter who is 60!)

Most people view time in a linear manner...

like a timeline with a starting point and an eventual endpoint....

somewhere way down the line.

Me...

I have always considered time to be circular...

like a Slinky!

Surely you had a Slinky at some point in your childhood...

or perhaps your children had one.

A Slinky, like a big long spring, has a beginning point and an end.

However all of the distance between the beginning and end is placed repetitively in a 

circular manner.

To me, each circle is a year of my life...

with January being at the top.

A year progresses like a clock... around the circle and back to the top...

only to start on it's course around the next coil.

When I take time to really examine my life,

I stretch that Slinky out as far as I can...

seeing the days, weeks, months, and years that have passed.

But, most of the time that Slinky is tightly coiled...

giving me the feeling that my youth is still within my reach.

Perhaps this is why it seems that the years have passed so quickly.

As I celebrate the life that I have lived thus far...

I realize that there are fewer coils ahead of me than behind me.

And while I have no idea how long my Slinky is...

I am hoping that I have many more years of love and laughter ahead.

And although I may not be able to do cartwheels any more

(for fear of breaking something)...

I am still the same girl inside that I have always been...

anticipating the next adventure...

jumping in with both feet!

And although my birth certificate swears I am turning 60 tomorrow...
I am sure that it's really just 40!

(PS...I am planning to remove all of the mirrors from my house...

so that I cannot see as the coming years pass...that how I feel may not match how I look!)

PSS...  Tomorrow's blog post will be written by Hubbs...
a birthday present and day off for me!
And I am not allowed to edit it in any way.... consider yourself warned!