Happy Birthday to me and Happy Life to You!

When I was a little girl I would calculate how old I would be in the year 2000. 37 sounded so old that I felt a pinch in my stomach.

Today I turn 47 and I don’t feel old at all. I feel, well – richer and fuller and, somehow, lighter than ever before. I am younger at heart than when I was in my 20`s. What dark days those were …

I recall older friends telling me how terrible it was to approach 50 and I feared it. Now that I’m almost there, I wonder why they were so upset.

I had my age-crisis when I turned 25 and felt that I was a quarter of a century old. Now I see I was but a child. I’m nearing half a century and I don’t give a damn. I know life is getting shorter, but today, now, this minute, I’m alive.

I no longer compare myself with Taylor Swift, but to Vanessa Redgrave. When I saw “Letters to Juliet”, I admired her in all her splendor.

There is something about certain older women that is not only beautiful, but grand, solemn and light all at once. I think of Katherine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn and today Diane Keaton, Catherine Deneuve and others like them. They become more striking, more elegant, more of a presence the older they get … I aspire to that. I will keep my hair long, even when it’s all grey. I will continue to grow as a person.

Instead of being angry about getting older, I am grateful that I am alive. A good friend who shared my birthday would have turned forty-some today, but he is dead. An extended-family member who was my age died of cancer two years ago. So, what is left but to celebrate life?

47 is just as good an age as any other. I hope to be able to say one day: "87 is just as good an age as any other" with the same energy of today. Then, my daughters - with me in the picture - will be the age I am now.

An age to keep on loving, laughing, writing, parenting, learning, dancing, running …. And living.

Happy Birthday to me and Happy Life to YOU!

http://www.lorrainecladish.com/