My physical body may be less efficient and less beautiful in old age. But God has given me an enormous compensation: my mind is richer, my Soul is broader, and my wisdom is at a peak. I am so happy with the riches of my advanced peak age that, contrary to Faust, I would not wish to return to youth.

   ~Robert Muller, taken from https://spiritualquotestoliveby.com/robert-muller-quotes/

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One day James and I took a ride to our local sporting goods store. Eric, my strength/core training teacher, endorsed having tension bands and weights to work out with away from the gym. Snow and ice were threatening to keep us indoors, and I thought, Wouldn't it be nice to have all the tools to work out with at home?

We wandered through the cavernous store, found the exercise section, put the weights (wimpy five pounders) and tension bands in the cart, and ALMOST turned to go.

But I had spotted a selection of jump ropes displayed right at my elbow.

"I used to LOVE to jump rope," I said to Jim. "If I had a jump rope, I could get my steps in by jumping rope when I can't get to the gym."

Jim pulled one earbud out and said, "Huh," in a mildly interested way. I put a jump rope in the cart, and we went to check out.

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And then, gosh darn it, the threatened weather piled in, and we had what is a ton of snow for this area. And right on the snow's heels, so to speak, came a tiny warming minute, when it rained.

Then temperatures plunged again, immediately, and everything froze—the rain-topped snow, the trees, the power lines. Streets were awful.

There were three or four days there when I couldn't get to the gym.

Finally, on a Sunday evening, I saw enough of the driveway ice had melted to create a goodly bare paved spot. A jump-roping spot. In need of some good, stretching aerobic exercise, I laced up my orthopedic sneakers, grabbed my jump rope, and ran outside.

I would skip rope, I thought, for at least half an hour.

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Hah. Here is what happened.

I centered myself, stretched a little, and then grabbed the rope and twirled it over my head. My left foot said, "Okay!"

My right foot said, "Look! There's a rope stuck on me!"

Hmm. I thought. Maybe this is because my shoes are two sizes bigger than the last time I jumped rope (which was, probably, something like thirty years ago, at least.) I will have to learn to do this again!

Twenty minutes later, it had become apparent that 'skipping rope' was no longer something I could do. I lassoed my right foot again and again. But, I thought, maybe I could I put both feet together and JUMP rope.

I tried that once, and it worked, sort of.

I tried that twice, and I landed wrong on my right knee. This awful jangling shot through my body, in two directions: up to my teeth and down to my toes.

I waited for the jangling to stop and tried again, and my right knee said, "No. Stop."

A couple more turns of the rope, and I decided the better part of valor was to listen to the knee.

I slunk, if a person with feet as big as mine can be said to do so, back into the house.

And when I had put the jump rope away and hung up my fleece, a thought waffled down and landed with a thunk on the floor of my bony mind cavern.

The thought was this: I am TOO OLD to jump rope.

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This will sound pretty nonsensical for a person of my advanced years, but I think this was the first time I truly ran into something I cannot do because of my age. Oh, there have been things I decided I no longer WANTED to do, and there certainly have been styles I decided never to wear again. There have been things (like painting a room) that, I have reluctantly had to admit, take a heck of a lot longer to complete than they used to.

I no longer scrub floors on my hands and knees, having invested in good technology, and even better help. Also, I go to bed MUCH earlier than I once did, and I rise much earlier, too. I have smallened-up my food portions (although I am not in any danger of fading away) and I have halved the amount of my working time.

All of these things have to do with a (I like to think) gracious acknowledgement of growing older, of inevitable change.

But, until the jump rope wriggled out of my hands and smacked me gleefully upside the head, giggling, "You're too OLD for this!" I had never come face to face with the thought that age was shutting some kind of doors.

I carried this thought ("I'm too OLD to jump rope!") around with me as I limped through the next couple of days.

And I had a conversation related to this with a person I know. I told her the jump rope story (humorously, I hope), and then I said, "Aging---it's not for the faint of heart."

She, who is roughly the same age as I am, replied, "Getting old sucks."

I was shocked, a little. I said, "Well, age certainly has its compensations."

"No, it doesn't," she replied firmly. "Getting old SUCKS."

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I was challenged. Does getting old suck??? I had to really wrestle with this. I spread out all the aches and pains, the dangers, the losses, and I started looking for the experience-greased pathways, the joys, and the gains. I had, sometimes, to really stretch to see the good things: our society does not embrace aging or celebrate its benefits.

But, I have to say, after debating inwardly for a week or more, I believe I was right: growing older DOES have its compensations.

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The first, of course, is that we're HERE. Cameron Diaz says, "My belief is that it's a privilege to get older---not everyone gets to get older."

I know people---you do too---who left us way too early: people who had so much to give, who were trying with their valiant hearts to give as much as they could, but who died much too soon. Those missed souls, if given a choice, I believe—along with their families, who miss them so,---would say something like, "Bring on the effects of aging; I can stand a few aches and pains. And so what if I can't jump rope anymore?"

Those of us who are left--well, we are here, we are here, just like Horton's Whos, and this is a time when I can contemplate and act. How lucky is that?

*************************************

And being here, and being older, I have choices I did not have when I was younger. I have put in my working years, for instance; my health care benefits are locked in. I do not have to work anymore, but I can choose to.

And I do, because I have the wonderful chance to work at a job that makes a difference in my community, and to work with people who care passionately about helping the people around them.

I choose to work, and I choose to work half-time, and I can do that because I am old.

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I remember that my parents, when Dad had retired, started to take little trips. They had never, in my recollection, taken a vacation, although they had taken us on many day trips to museums and parks and forts and waterfalls. But, when Dad retired, they started getting in the car and driving, say, to Williamsburg, Virginia, where they soaked up the history and enjoyed eating out and sleeping between the crisp clean sheets of a chain motel. Aging gave them the opportunity to choose to travel, and I am glad they went on those adventures. I'm glad they had the choice.

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Aging also means letting go of certain things, things that might not seem earth-shaking, but whose absence can lighten the way I see my life. Take, for instance, reading. I was carrying around a paper list of "great books"—things I should read. And I had a stack of these books wavering on the old wooden treadle sewing machine where I put mail and other things which need attention. You may not have been aware, but books talk out loud. These ones were all hissing, "It is your obligation to read me. Get to it, Sister."

Some books were there in the stack because they were bestsellers, and some because they would Edify Me, and some because they were highly recommended on groups I belong to and by publications I read. I tell you, and this is true, when I walked by the wobbling stack, which, read as I might, never grew smaller, one of those volumes would reach out, meanly, and pinch me.

One day I looked at them and thought, "Why?" And I realized I have graduated from that place where I read because I HAVE to.

Now I will read because I WANT to.

I will let go of that sense of obligation I've been tugging around.

Which isn't to say I will only read fluff and stuff. I'm reading, right now, about the women's suffrage movement for a paper I need to right—and the paper is something I WANT to write. The reading isn't always what I might call entertaining, but it's compelling.

And then, on the side, I am reading Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, just because I have always wanted to do that, and I have other fun books waiting.

It's not that I have fewer books in the stack, it's just that I have chosen them differently, by a different standard.

"Will I enjoy this?" I ask, rather than, "Is this good for me? SHOULD I read this?"

At my age, I have a very visceral realization that I CANNOT read all the books. I'll let go of that idea, and I will read the books that make me smile, and the ones that help me grow. There's no need to hang on to some of the things I've been dragging around—not when they don't enhance my life.

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And, now that I'm retired, now that work doesn't come with planning and grading that seeps into weekend and breaks, now there is TIME to do the things I really want, or really need, to do. I don't have to do everything, though, and that was an imperative I carried with me for a long, long time.

In fact, the knowledge that time is not limitless hones my choices. Which of these possibilities are things I'd like to be remembered for having done? Considering that, my path gets a whole lot less cluttered.

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And here's a thing: relationships are a whole lot clearer as I age. It's like I've been on a conveyor belt going through a searing oven—a kind of elimination tunnel—during the Busy Years. And now I'm out, on the other side, and some of the ties I had have evaporated in the heat.

But the ones that remain—well, those relationships are kiln-fired; they're lasting. Oh they COULD be broken—broken by sledge-hammer, maybe,--but they've withstood the flames.

And I've been tempered in that oven, too; I'm much less likely to take a sledge hammer to something so precious these days.

So I savor those ties—the ones that have been steady all along, with, maybe, just a few gaps along the busy way; and the ones that started out strong, drifted mightily, but then came roaring back. There are friends found through work, friends that stayed right on the path long after the work connection was gone.

And there is room now for new connections, too. The glitz and surface charges have subsided, and the dear ones I have now—in person and on line---are people who share values and humor and some sort of purpose.

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And not that I'm toddling off to a corner, permanently, with a cup of tea and a plate of ginger snaps, or anything, but stacking up the years brings an appreciation of the simple joys of everyday life: a well-cooked meal, a soaring song, half an hour of rich conversation. Shoes that fit, and a piece of art that makes me smile, a letter in the mail…maybe those aren't such little things, after all, when I have time and perspective to savor them.

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Teetering on this lofty precipice, I realize, daily, that I have contributions to make, but that it's not all up to me. Balance—that's the thing. I give where I can, I help when it's possible, I rest when I need to.

And I let go responsibility for the whole, entire world. I will do what I can. I will appreciate this time I've been given.

*****************************************

When the weather cleared up and I could go back to the gym, I told Eric and my strength and core training classmates about the jump rope. They laughed, and they shared stories, too.

Eric said, so kindly, "I hate jumping rope! I could never do it right." And he talked about ways to exercise at home, and about the fact that there are great at home workouts and yoga routines online. He recommended a website where we could find them.

So, the jump rope goes into the donate box, and yes, I'll admit that's one thing I will not do again—one thing that age has snuck up behind me about, has tapped me on the shoulder in regard to, has chortled, "You're too OLD to skip rope, Baby! You're too old!"

Oh, well. There are, as my colleagues at the gym attest, other ways of getting steps in. And there is so much left to do, so much considering and sorting, connecting and completing. And—while I'd never suggest I had reached the point of wisdom---I have, maybe, reached a stage of impending discernment. Clarity is coming, and I'm seeing the fog lift on the path.

My body, as Robert Muller said, may be far less efficient in some ways, but there ARE compensations—beautiful, natural, enriching compensations—to aging. I resonate to Muller's words: "I am so happy with the riches of my advanced peak age that, contrary to Faust, I would not wish to return to youth."

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