TODAY's QUOTE Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these ~ Susan B. Anthony Yesterday's Entries 2001: Don't Look Back TODAY's READ Reading Lolita in Tehran BOOKS READ THIS YEAR Arranged Marriage EXERCISE I will exercise again, as soon On TV West Wing marathon FOOD Breakfast: Cheerios with banana Getting to know me.... 
Which Woman of Beauty Are
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SIXTY-ONE 17 February 2004 It seems like a good way to start my 62nd year is with a weigh-in, it being Tuesday and all. I’m on this great new diet. It’s called "cough-your-guts-out-and-lose-your-taste-buds." It’s very effective. In fact, I’ve lost three pounds this week. Unfortunately, it’s not likely that it’s a diet that will last much longer. In fact, the taste buds are coming back, and the coughing spasms are coming at longer intervals, so I may have to find some other way of sticking to my eating plan. But for now a 3 lb loss is a 3 lb loss and I’ll take it, no matter how I happened to get it! Sixty-one. How did I get to be 61? Well, I suppose it’s the logical thing after one turns 60. You either get to 61 or you don’t – 61 is definitely preferable to the alternative. Why does 61 sound so old? Maybe because I recently saw this old, bald, crippled guy on TV and they were talking about this "old man"...and he was 60. Have I mentioned that I’m 61 today? The older I get, the more I realize that age is very definitely a state of mind. All you have to do is spend the day with my 84 year old mother to realize that numbers do not determine "old age" at all. My father, who died at 72, was a very old man. My mother, age 84, is barely middle-aged. There is no slowing down for this lady. She’s as active today as she was at...well...at 61. Or 40. I come from good genes. At least half of them. More important than genes, I think, is mental attitude. I suppose now that I’m officially "old," I can say that the secret of staying young is never to let your brain get old. My brain doesn’t have time to get old. And, being Aquarian, it’s constantly reinventing itself. Who would have predicted, when I was lounging about eating bon bons and watching the flab jiggle over the sides of my recliner, that in my late 50s I’d take up a healthy lifestyle? Who could have predicted that I’d have to go back to work to pay for gym fees for God’s sake? Who could have predicted that I’d actually enjoy it? Who could have predicted that I, Queen Couch Potato of the world, would be sidelined, at age 60, by a biking accident, for pete’s sake. Me, whose only broken bones were incurred by dropping food on my foot went flying over the handlebars of a bicycle, a vehicle I had avoided for 30 years in a city that has the nickname as the "City of Bicycles." Who would have guessed I'd fly over said bike after a ride of thirty miles, a distance which I would have told you months before was laughable. You have to fool your body into staying not-old. I won’t be so presumptuous as to say "young," because with all its wrinkles and scars and sags, this body ain’t young...but if I can keep it "not old," that’s a triumph right there. To go along with the "not old" body, is the peace of mind. I dunno where it came from. Maybe I found it at the graveside of our two children, when I finally agreed to let them go. Maybe I found it watching the rabbits silhouetted against the rising sun on a morning bike ride out into the country. Maybe I found it looking out over the Indian Ocean in Geraldton, watching the sun go down. Maybe I found it cleaning out closets and drawers and saying goodbye to so many chapters of my life. Wherever I found it, there is peace in my head and peace in my heart. And peace in one’s heart goes a long way toward keeping the mind "not old" too. So here I am, writing this, with the clock approaching midnight, heading into my 62nd year. I am happy. I am peaceful. I am "not old" and I’m ready to face the next year. Happy birthday to me.
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
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For more photos, please visit My Fotolog and My FoodLog |
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Weight Lost to date: 45.8 lbs
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Created 2/15/04
