Blog Friend Feature: Good Day, Regular People

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The only reason that I held off on asking this week's Blog Friend Feature to guest post over here is that I pretty much assume that you all know her.  Because she's one of the most amazing bloggers there is.  You won't find anyone more supportive.  She's witty and caring and flat out fabulous.

But, then I realized that the blogosphere is such a huge place that some of you might not have met her yet. And you are really missing out if you do not know Alexandra aka The Empress from Good Day, Regular People. 

It's Not So Bad, This Getting Old Stuff

"And look at this...my elbows. Just look at them. All droopy and stretched out and....OLD looking. It's all over. My neck? My neck is all full of lines, and I hate this getting old stuff. I just hate it. I don't want to get old." I watched my new neighbor assess her body, unhappy, on this beautiful summer day.

I sat staring at the woman across from me, the one who seemed to be falling apart, with...well, falling apart.

Sighing, I exhaled: "Hey, you're TEN years younger than me. What are you complaining about? You look good."

She looked up at me, startled, with the realization of how she may have hurt my feelings with her lamentations on the inevitable. "Oh...uh..sorry. I mean, you don't look old, I mean, you're not old, it's just...I mean..."

"It's alright," I assured her. "I'm fine with getting old. I like it."

I gave her a few minutes to consider this different point of view, on aging. I took pity on her. She was just 40. The age at where your age starts to sound old.

"I like getting older," I continued, "I like seeing who I am, and not having to pretend I'm somebody else. I like realizing  I'm not perfect, and it's Okay. It's nice to be free of all the pressure that the world puts on a woman to be beautiful and just right all the time. It's really nice."

I meant every word I was saying. There is a beauty in becoming mature, in realizing that half your life is lived, and deciding that you want to spend the second half, happy.  With getting older comes the grown up wisdom of knowing who you are.  You base your decisions on what you will be handing over to the next generation.

I am no font of wisdom, but I have been around the block not just once, but a few times. I have fumbled my way through my twenties and thirties and forties.  I feel a welcome sense of relief, knowing that so many phases of uncertainty in my life are over, behind me.

I am a semi geezer. Not full blown geezer yet, but inching toward the line. I have become blessed with a short memory, which makes it easy to forgive; a lapsing vocabulary, which makes it easy to be understood; and dimishing vision, which makes me look all the more lovely than I remember myself looking, in the mirror.  My hearing? My hearing is shot. So I don't hear any gossipy whisperings.

Like I went on to say, that morning last summer, to my poor, young neighbor, "It's nice getting old, you'll like it."

Please leave our dear Empress some comment love here and RUN over to follow her blog!