There is a grieving for opportunities past, opportunities lost. It’s like the world moved on when you just stepped off momentarily to take a quick look—and it’s gone. Not the world,
but the world you thought you knew.
There is a grieving for the identity you had carefully (or maybe not so carefully) nurtured—okay, it kind of just happened,
but the happening seemed real and sure until one day you woke, and you realized you are not important anymore. Well, maybe you weren’t before, but at least you thought you were. Didn’t the world somehow revolve around you?
You are patronized that you can do some things well—and at your age!
When you are young, those things you do well are fuel for an ever expanding future—the first step to a waiting, dazzling world, begging for your grand entrance with its greatest hits.
But those same skills and gifts at 60-something are quaint, anomalies in a fading body and aching mind.
You have had to step aside for all the young, pushing from the rear—
because the utilitarian you is now seen as an impediment to the dreamers closing in.
And you are known more for your aches than your art—
more for your halting step than your racing mind.
Wisdom is underrated by the young; but
for all you have lost, that you have indeed gained,
but there is something muddled in this system when you finally have a substantive message but have lost your audience.
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II Corinthians 4: 7-8, 16-18:
We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.
That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.
For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!
So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
[new blog–> http://www.apronheadlilly.wordpress.com]
A p r o n h e a d -- Lilly Green 
Plenty to think about in what you write.
Thank you, Susan.
Well said. Something I too have been contemplating of late.
I look at the youths that I teach, and I wish I could in some way teach them to treasure the now, but getting on to an exciting future is all they can see.
Way back in college I had an English prof who used to tell us, “Don’t sacrifice the present for the future”. I thought that was profound and wrote it down but it was decades before i truly understood it. As the old saying goes, it seems youth is truly wasted on the young. Keep trying with your students though. Someday your teaching will come home to them.
Do we get a do-over? 🙂
Yes, a do-over would be nice! (If only we could have our youthful bodies once again but keep all our memories and experiences…. and hopefully some wisdom.) “If I knew then what I know now….” and all that. 🙂
I guess I have trouble with change. 🙂
You have really nailed it for me! Beautiful post.
If I had to pick an age to go back to, it would be 50. Old enough to know things, young enough to do things.
And not old enough for the body to start rebelling!!! 🙂 Okay make that 40!