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Reflections on Turning 80.

 I have another birthday tomorrow. Eighty years of looking back gives one an excellent vantage point from which to measure time. And living in the heart of the Ozarks where seasons are distinct and reliable give you another way of measuring the nuances of life.

There is a season for planting when parents and teachers plant seeds of virtues like honesty and hard work, accountability and responsibility, character and reputation, (and knowing the difference), the value of time and money. Things like “you may be poor, but you don’t have to go dirty!”
Then comes the long season of growth. High school and maybe college. That first job and first car. Marriage and children. Raises and promotions. Home ownership. Friendships multiply and deepen. Life is a continuous growing process during this period of time. Still learning something new every day, mostly the hard way - by experience. The biggest mistake we can make in this time of our life is to think it will last forever. It won’t.
Next comes harvest time. Rewards for a life well lived. Adult children and maybe grandchildren. The pace of life slows a little bit, if you are lucky. This is a bittersweet time of life. Some of your friends have already passed on, those remaining have become more precious.
Memories are more meaningful. Reality sets in that things are changing - that you are entering a new stage of life - leaving a past to which you can never return. Memories vs. reality, again it’s important to know the difference.
We remember where we used to go, what we used to do, how we were constantly busy and never seemed to run out of energy. We had no idea that one day all that would be over. The reality is that aging happens, and all the facial creams and hair dye in the world can’t change it.
You give thanks that wrinkles don’t hurt.
Our eyes change. We can’t read the fine print, but we don’t see the flaws in others either. We look at this world through other-worldly eyes, sometimes catching a glimpse of another life, another place.
We wouldn’t go back if we could, but some days when the future seems uncertain, we long for the times that live only in our memories.
Nature is preparing for winter, resetting her clock and calendar as the crimsons and golds and oranges and browns of the leaves and ground shrubbery remind us that another change is coming.
I am now in the fall season of my life. Recently I saw a tree which was bare except for one leaf just hanging on, and to tell you the truth, sometimes that’s the way I feel. If I didn’t have so much more reading and writing I want to do, and people to love and granddaughters to watch grow up, I would be glad to just move on and live where there is no more pain. I have so many friends and family who have already gone ahead, probably more up there now than here. But God keeps us here until He is through with us.
And then comes the final season. The earth and its accoutrements need a time of rest and refreshing, a time to renew. The earth is pregnant with new life, full of bulbs now dormant and hidden in the ground to grow, just as the baby in the womb is in hiding, but growing nonetheless, awaiting the birth of spring, when the cycle starts all over again.
Copyright Joan Rowden Hart

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