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The Handbook of Aging
by Ronnie B. Angelus, parishioner

You say you're feeling old? Get over it, brothers and sisters, just get over it! You're looking good. You're making it, on canes or crutches or waiting for your radiation treatment - you're making it and,

Think about this:

You've already made it a lot longer than many, maybe even most.

I'm 73 years old, which means I've celebrated my 73rd birthday and am already almost two months into my 74th year. I didn't get that concept until somebody explained that you don't celebrate your first birthday until you have completed your first year of life. I somehow had missed that vital piece of information. Which proves you don't have to be very smart to get very old.

You just have to keep breathing. And doing and being, seeing and thinking and hoping. Curiosity helps. It helps to be a little breathless at the possibilities around the next corner.

Ladies and gentlemen -- unfurl your flags and beat the drums and lift your head up high and march bravely, bravely into life. Rejoice when you turn 50, laugh and shout when you turn 60, revel and be exuberant when you turn 70 and fall in love all over again. With your old somebody, or somebody new. Or with yourself. It's okay to be a little narcissistic. You've earned it.

Don't say, "I'm too old": too old at 50 to get a job, too old to make a new best friend when you're 60, don't say you don't have time to build the memories -- just build them faster and treasure the moments more mindfully.

Don't say life can't be juicy, don't think you can't feel vibrant and alive and sexy on any day in any year of your life. Put on your bathing suit on a warm summer day, and your longest dangliest jewelry and go prancing in a sprinkler. And unless some unenlightened soul thinks you've taken leave of your senses and commits you to a home, you'll have a perfectly marvelous time.

Don't put off or cross off one thing on your dream list. Today could just be the day you do it or see it or be it. Yesterday for the first time I went on a tour backstage at the Guthrie Theater and saw the costume rooms and sewing rooms and I actually stood on the stage of the Guthrie and looked out at the audience. First time ever!

And I went to lunch with a man who is a connoisseur of wine and he had the waiter bring samples of several wines we were considering so we could taste them before making a choice of a carafe. Now, I didn't know you could do that until yesterday. Yesterday. And I'm two days short of being two months into my 74th year

And that's the bottom line. It pays to keep living for just as long as you possibly can. And stay alive to life and to adventure for just as long as you possibly can. Because if you don't, you could miss something. And it could be the SOMETHING you were born to do or be or see or have.

So hold your head up high, look fondly at your bulges and bumps and scars, your drooping parts, and give them a little pat. They got you where you are today and they deserve a little credit. Take them to a spa. Get them a massage. Pay them homage. They are your medals of honor.

Square your shoulders, unfurl your flags; beat the drums and march bravely, bravely into the new day -- or hour or minute. Today could be the day -- this minute could be the defining minute of your life. Keep your eyes wide open. You wouldn't want to miss it.

Ronnie Angelus says: "There are three things that make my life work: Talking to my daughter who opens vistas to me and makes me laugh; being in the circle of the Divas, my writing group, who shout "go girl" and give me standing ovations with their smiles and tears; sitting next to Mary and Claude Paradis during Sunday Mass at St. Joan of Arc, which is as close to pure goodness as I will know in this lifetime."

Ronnie B. Angelus
12/4/99