Half A Century

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Jude 1:2  “Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.”

All of my life I’ve lied about my age. When I was 16 I lied and said I was eighteen so I could get served liquor in the bar. When I turned eighteen, the drinking age was changed to twenty-one and wouldn’t you know it, I lied then too. Funny thing is, when I was nine and going to the bar with my mother and father I didn’t need to be a certain age and I was very good at being mischievously sneaky in getting a drink. 

It began earlier in life when I used to go to bingo with my mother and you had to be sixteen but at twelve I didn’t look sixteen and by the time I did look sixteen I didn’t want to go to bingo I wanted to go to bars. What a phase. 

Many people are ashamed of their dark past escapades but I can’t hold shame because it was the years that I was forming being shaped into the person I am today. Just so you know, I quit drinking at twenty-one because there was no more mystery and excitement and well I had already been married for four years at the time so life was steam-rolling ahead.

Even when I first entered this windowed world at thirty-seven I lied and said I was twenty-nine figuring I was the older woman to younger people, and the younger woman to older people, if that makes any sense. Even a few years ago, my nephew (by marriage) asked my age and I instantly replied closer to forty than I am to fifty. 

Even at CHURCH I told my friend whose wife is the same age as me that I was over forty and not near fifty. He replied, “Good because once you hit fifty, it’s all downhill from there.”

So why do we lie about our age? I have my guesses but the reality is, we are all too eager to be older then when we get older we miss being younger. Reality has a hold on me now, I’m NOT getting any younger and yes I’m getting older, just like everyone else. Maybe I’ll finally catch up to my friends who are all nearing sixty or older.

My friend said that it’s all downhill from here but darn, I’ve never started climbing uphill or had that moment of an uphill so why do I go downhill from here? I don’t. I stay myself and take what is tossed at me in the winds of change and embrace it for what it is, change! 

The year of change is taking on different hues and as I celebrate 50, and my mother celebrates the day back home with me, (yes, I was born on my mother’s birthday) and we keep climbing UPHILL to that stairway of heaven that awaits us at the end of this journey, I embrace the odyssey. 

To all the people who wish me a happy birthday, I thank them from the bottom of my heart. I have never in my fifty years had a birthday party for myself, my mother always had a cake that said happy birthday, Del and as a side note the cake would have ‘and joni’. My birthday was never a celebration of me and I learned to accept that. A birthday is just the day you mark yourself and shout out to the world I MADE IT ANOTHER YEAR! People are happy that you’ve made it another year and thanks to facebook many people get to celebrate your day in some way with you. 

While my life continues on and I can rejoice living another year, I’m not done climbing yet and the hill seems steeper and steeper with each step. I will move onward and upward no matter what limitations my body has and now when people ask my age instead of saying ‘over the hill’ I can say ‘still climbing’. I’m okay with that.  Teeheehee

As Holy Week this year includes my birthday smack dab in the middle, I will continue on the path of sharing all that God has filled me with in my life and through me you will see a spirit-filled woman who is truly blessed in every sense of the word. 

God bless each and every one of you as He has me!

Angel always…godspeed!

Jude 1:3 “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”