Category: Columns

Don’t make me have to learn how to ride a camel!

I had a startling epiphany today. I realized that it’s six months and counting until the day I turn sixty-five years old. OMG, I cannot even relate to that number. I still see myself as that college girl who wore peasant blouses and sandals. My husband often says that I looked like a hippie the first time he saw me, but that is so not true.

Okay, I’m not foolish enough to miss the wrinkles that crinkle around my eyes when I smile or the blonde hair that has grown more gray than blonde with each passing year. But come on, in my heart of hearts, I’m still somewhere around twenty-five years old.

After accepting that I’m not as young as I used to be, I got a little melancholy today and resurrected an old journal I kept after graduating college. I couldn’t help but laugh revisiting some of the issues I wrote about with such heart stirring emotion. Okay, I admit it. I was a bit of a drama queen back then.

On the last few pages of my journal, I was surprised to find six goals that I pledged to accomplish before I turned thirty…I guess that thirty must have sounded old back then. As if!

These were my goals:
1)Get my Masters Degree – check.
2)Become the greatest high school teacher or counselor – check and check. That is, I became both a teacher and high school counselor. I know for a fact that I wasn’t the greatest by far, but I had a great time trying.

3)Get married – checkety, check, check – still going strong after thirty eight years!

4)Have kids – check times three. I squeaked by with this one, having my first child at thirty.

5)Write a book – I did not even remember writing down that goal, but check.

How I raced so swiftly through the past wonderful, challenging, joyful, trying, amazing years is a mystery to me. But with the understanding that the clock is still ticking and not wanting to waste even a minute, I thought I better get cracking and come up with a few new short term goals that I might actually accomplish by the time I turn sixty-five.

Goals To Be Accomplished Over The Next Six Months & Before I Turn Sixty-Five.

1)Walk thirty minutes a day at least five days a week. Since I spend so much time sitting, either writing or sewing this will be one big chunk of a goal for me to reach.

2)Finish writing my book, The Witch of Bergen. This is also a tough one as I have been working on rewrites for what seems like forever! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that some kind of magic kicks in soon.

3)Read Paul Arden’s best seller – It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be. I understand that it’s an engaging book with tons of clues for positive self- improvement and I’m always looking for ways to improve myself.

4)Lose twenty pounds. Or at least make attempts to lose twenty pounds – after all, I am a realist.

5)Buy a pair of flashy red shoes. Why? Just because I’d really like a pair of red shoes and I’m getting older and better do this before I’m too ancient to actually look good in wild and crazy red shoes! Perhaps I better just look for some red tennis shoes.

You may have noticed that I only have five goals. I have yet to finalize the sixth one. Learn how to bake, fly a plane, ride a camel? Perhaps you have an idea or two that you’d like to share, especially since I really don’t want to have to learn how to ride a camel.