My best friend tells me that as people age they are supposted to S L O W down.  Why?  I have done the opposite and I believe it keeps me young....well probably younger than most people assume I am,
 
Recently I was asked to take on some duties at my daughter's school and my husband put his foot down and said NO.   I guess I have trouble saying no to some things.  I like being involved and meeting people.  If I had to stay in a cubicle all day you'd have to peel me from the ceiling.   I know that my husband was right.  I am too involved with so many things and adding another would be crazy.
 
Between being a mom and wife I manage to squeeze in college, volunteering at a women's shelter, work and an internship as well as writing content for three websites and legislation for the American Legion.... I am thinking......could I possibly add a yoga class?    When right?
 
Working with patients and seeing dealth as much as life abound everyday, I have learned to look at life as a land of opportunities....and you never know what is around the corner to surprise you.   I watched my grandparents always talk about traveling but never did it....they died in the same microscopic town in Texas where they had lived 95% of their entire lives.  
 
I found it sad and made a decision that I would not find myself bedridden someday with a whole list of regrets.  Regrets....about the choices we make......rather than the choices we chose not to make.   Faced with difficulties beyond my control there were big rocks in my path but I manage to find my way around them eventually.  I never give up.
 
An injury stole the medical career I loved for 20 years so I am like many people in America right now---starting over.  I get to reinvent myself.  So I decided to go back to college...but couldn't decide to stay in medicine or go into law....and that is a decision I am still struggling with.  Doing both....I find myself at a point I have to decide between the two.  It is odd to think I'd be stuck in this place...faced with a decision like this when I had always thought I'd be doing the job I loved until I retired.  Now....I wonder if anyone will retire...and I just may be one of those who refuse to retire.   Heck...I may end up in Belize working as a PA and scuba diving everychance I get.
 
That injury didn't define me.  It was a mixed blessing.  I found myself home with my kids instead of working 60-85 hour weeks.   Sleeping in was a discovery I still revel in and wonder how the heck I survived all those years without it.   When the physicians gave me a list of ALL the things I wouldn't be able to do anymore I cried, got mad, and then preceded to prove them wrong.  For someone who is technically 90% disabled in both arms/hands...I became an avid scuba diver, design stained glass for my husband to make, and became a DIY professional.   At that point I went back to school and so forth.
 
I do refuse to get old.  That commercial on TV with the song "When I grow up I want to be an old woman"....makes me want to scream.   Yes...I buy and use every anti-aging product I can find less than $50, drink a gallon of water a day, and grew my hair out long.  What does the length of my hair have to do with it?  I grew up in the south where it is a common belief that as a woman ages she also should shorten her hair and wear frumpy clothes.  Sorry...that isn't going to happen here.  Today I told my teenage daughter that when I get old, that if she loves me at all she will demand people think of me as still looking 40 even though I passed that landmark years ago.  Yes....lie to me.
 
Don't get me wrong.  I know I will get old and wrinkled but that doesn't mean I have to like it.    If I can afford surgery I will have it.   Not for purely selfish reasons but because it is something I can use to fight this to a certain degree.  I know my boundaries though.  I refuse to be a plumped-up, skin stretched to the point you can't smile, plastic barbie doll kind of woman.  At almost 50 I still have all my original parts and aside from getting my nose straightened after a mugger in NY made it turn abruptly to the right, and a tummy-tuck that saved my life.... I am all me. 
 
How does a tummy-tuck save one's life?  On a lark  they found a particularly bad thing and removed it.....and had they not I would be dead.  See....vanity saved my life so why shouldn't I think of surgery as a good thing?   I never knew how vain I was until I found my first white hair.   Did you know that coloring pure white hair is almost impossible?  Yep.  Thankfully, being a redhead I look like I am getting highlights.  I wonder how long I can pull that off?
 
All those years of working in the dark has paid off big time.  (Ultrasound techs do it in the dark)   Being the lightest shade of pale possible without being technically  colorless...my skin is fabulous.  I know I am bragging and for goodness sake let me brag...those wrinkles are sneaking around the corner over there!  My sisters both used to tan beautifully while I freckled and peeled.....but now I get the pay-off from lack of sun damage.  I guess some would say I fit the "cougar"  category as my husband is signifantly younger than me....and he has to work to catch up to me.   That makes me smile.  Why shouldn't it?
 
Some may think I wrote this bragging, bragging blog of bragging more still....to simply brag some more.  If you haven't gotten it yet this has become my "pep" talk.   I will be young.  I won't get old.  I think I can....I think I can...of course I can....please say I can...of course you can.....thanks.  We all are beautiful.  We all are eternally young.   We all are vibrant women.  Yes we are....we are....of course we are.   Repeat our mantra....we are young....we are vibrant....eternallly young....
 
Oh yeah....Anyone got any tips on spider veins?   I wear high heels everyday..I .refuse to go the way of "comfortable" footwear and discard fashion completely.   Alright...perhaps that is not entirely true...but I do have a heck of a shoe collection.....now about those spider viens...........fess up I need help!