Yep, I’m an old woman and it’s okay. I’ve accepted my fate, it’s not a choice made by me, there’s no explanation why I live into my seventies, while many others do not, as I did nothing to deserve these extra miles.
And so, with time on my hands, I’d like to get to know you and I’d like for you to know me. Maybe I can share some stuff you’ll learn sooner or later, because living long, even if one does it with one eye closed, like I did most of my life, you pick-up a few things and if you’re open to it, I'm happy to pass on some hard learned lessons to save you some time, energy, and possibly struggle.
For instance, “Is it okay to say no?”, the answer is yes, why, because it’s okay not to want to do something, especially something you hadn’t planned on and honestly, this includes saying no to family, friends, and even yourself, it is absolutely, irrefutably, **** straight okay to say, “No can do “ and if you find it hard to say no, you can say, “Let me think about it”, then, if you decide to give it a go, you can, and if not, there's always texting, email or a phone call, “Sorry, not up for it, but thanks.”
So, back to getting to know you and you, me, what I’ve found astonishing is how much in common we all have, no matter what our age difference, remember, I was young once and what's really awesome is that when we let our guard down, curiosity rushes in, it actually flows between us humans, there’s a lot to play with really, it’s astonishing how in our culture we’ve be taught to stay away from one another, like you might catch my “old germs”, or I could catch rebellious young germs from you. If only.
So, can we try, can we start a new group, a “we’reinthistogether” club, to share our stories, our concerns, our triumphs, plus, we could see how much in common we have, like our hunger for connection, our longing to belong, our desire to know our personal value and guess what, we could finally admit we care, that we are concerned for one another and if we didn’t feel like talking, we could simply sit in silence, I could skip feeling old, if you could leave your cell phone out of sight.
Of course, remember, you can always say, “Let me think about it,” however if we do get together, perhaps you'd be willing to tell me what’s important to you and I'd be happy to share some of my hard-earned life lessons, like it's okay to say, "I'm sorry."
~ pe kaplan
