Wrinkles and dentures and canes, oh my!

I've been feeling old lately. Sometimes I don't mind this getting older business too much…like when I hear this:

"Yah, he told me that he slept with one of my friends. So obviously I deleted her from Facebook right away."

Obviously. Can I tell you how pleased I am not to have the phrase "drunk f@$k" in my vernacular?

But most of the time, it's not a good feeling. It certainly takes me down a notch to hear this kind of thing:

"Have you seen David Beckham's new H&M ad? God, I hope his son does one."

Wait. What?!

Then there's the moment while scanning a client's file when I realize that the babies who were born the year that I was heading off to university are heading off to university this year.

Or that, technically speaking, I could be a grandmother.

Growing old isn't for wimps. I get it now. It's not about battling arthritis and bad hips. It's the psychological warfare that takes place as your brain refuses to loosen its grip on the idea of being young, of being at its prime, of having an infinite array of possibilities and an infinite amount of time to explore them, while the world around you breezes past, barely registering your presence.

I know someone who hates every second of the aging process and is kicking and screaming and fighting her way through her golden years, viewing each ache and each wrinkle as a personal affront. I want to do it gracefully, with peace and joy and as much dignity as I can manage. But it's terrifying. 

So, instead of dwelling, I think I'll choose to focus on the one thing I always think about when things get scary. The one thing that reminds me why growing old is totally worth it: