Use it or lose it

Father Time kicked me in the butt this month. I turned FIFTY. I also got the flu. And went on vacation to Costa Rica. All pretty much at the same time.

I don’t know about you, but I have a very finite amount of time (and even more finite amount of money) that I can spend on vacation. So flu or no, I was going to do everything I planned on doing in Costa Rica. (Well, except get a good night’s sleep and eat decent food. I planned on doing those things but it didn’t quite work out).

I did the rafting, and the canopy tour, and six hours of Spanish instruction daily, and the volcano tours and all that, and pretty much felt like crap, but heck, what else was I going to do? I was there.

And you just don’t realize how great it is to feel normal until you feel like ass.

Both my sweetie and I were sick, and a week or so later, we’re STILL saying to each other, boy did I feel terrible.  Boy, did we.

But what makes me feel almost as terrible (but not really, because there’s no raging fever, blinding headache or aches and pain all over my body, including my hair), is the fact that maybe I took for granted a bunch of days I was healthy, and moped around a bit, and wasted time instead of doing something productive because I was feeling sorry for myself.

I’m not bummed about being fifty. It is what it is….and it’s better than the alternative. But it DOES make you accept certain truths. Like these for example:

1. I’m probably more than half-way through.
I’d like to think it’s only half-way, but that’s most likely optimistic. It may be possible for me to make more money in my life, but I cannot make more time. It’s ticking away. I got a goddamn AARP application fergawdsakes.

2. Instead of being the youngest person in the room, I am very often the oldest.
Fortunately, I can still lay claim to being the shortest – unless there are some nine-year-olds present. In fact, I find I am now old enough to be some of my friends’ mothers. I’m glad my outlook is youthful enough to hang out with people in their twenties, but I am also conscious of “being a woman of a certain age” and I really don’t want to become a caricature.

3. My body is changing.
It’s all going south. I can Priscilla Presley-myself all I want, but my body is going to do what bodies naturally do. I’ve decided I will work like hell to control what I can (mostly everything below my neck – exercise helps, but I have way too much sun damage to think I can fix my skin). I’m coloring my hair. I’ll try not to eat too much. But apart from maybe Sophia Loren and Raquel Welch, age takes its toll. Best not to agonize about it. Spend the time doing something more fun.

So my point is my dears, you better frigging enjoy what you have now. No amount of complaining, moaning or moping is going to protect you from the march of time. Whatever time you waste right now in a dead-end relationship or bad job or buried in a package of Oreos, you will NEVER get back. Every minute you spend stewing in your own miserable juices is a minute you steal from YOURSELF. Not from someone else’s life. YOUR OWN.  And that’s another minute you have wasted. Another minute you could have been using to move forward, to more happiness and prosperity.

It’s pretty damn useless to realize this when you’re already in the rocking chair. Realize it NOW when you still have the energy to make changes. And make the changes.

When you waste a minute with inactivity or wallowing in misery, indecision or anger, the only person you really hurt is YOU. Because no matter how much revenge you are able to exact on your soon-to-be-ex partner, you will never get those minutes back for your life again.

Worried about losing some minutes? Send me an email. Or for more wit and wisdom (if I may say so), check out my book, "Do I Need To Slap You?"