Growing old gracefully

Why is it that as we get older the years seem to get shorter? Seems it was just yesterday that my youngest daughter was born -- but in reality, she'll be 24 in a couple of days. When I first joined the band that I spent 30+ years with, I was 14 years old and the youngest band member they had ever had. When I started playing darts at age 22, I was one of the youngest darters to go "pro". Now I look around me and realize that I'm no longer the youngest at anything that I do. And I don't like it one bit. At heart I'm still young, but God has not been kind to my body. I feel like a young woman in an old person's body. At least that's what I tell people anyway.

Gone are the days of "partying", drinking till I can no longer stand on my own and staying up until 5 or 6am -- knowing that if I can just manage to find where I'd parked my house -- I'd still have enough time to take a quick shower and be to work by 8am. These days my eyes start to cross and I'm yearning for sleep by 9pm. The thought of going to a party or concert -- or even to a movie means that I have to "hit the hay" at 7:30pm for at least a week prior, in preparation for staying up a bit longer on that special night.

They say with age comes character.

I want to know who this "they" person is, because the only thing that I've found is that with age comes aches, pains, arthritis, gray hair (and lets not forget the hair that begins to grow in strange places) and wrinkles. Whomever coined the saying "Growing old gracefully" must have only lived to the ripe old age of 30 something....because in actuality...it's all downhill from there.

January is already half over. Where did it go? Am I just in such a rush throughout life that I've missed it? Who knows. The way the years fly by throughout my old age, I'll probably wake up tomorrow, only to find out that it's already 2011.