Nothing to Say......

The title of this post is the title of a song often heard on Christian radio and it's by Andrew Peterson, a singer-songwriter of great talent. The title appealed to me because I decided that today is a day off. It's a strange day: it's like the day Joni Mitchell wrote about in Chelsea Morning:

Woke up, it was a Chelsea Morning, and the first thing that I knew—

There was milk, and toast, and honey,
 And a bowl of oranges too,

And the sun poured in like butterscotch,
 And stuck to all my senses......

Oh—
Won't you stay,

 We'll put on the day,

And we'll talk in present tenses.

Anyone who knows me even a little bit well knows that I'm a long-time fan of Ms. Mitchell even if she is Canadian :-) I know, she can be profane and terminally cynical at times but her lyrics are eerily similar to my own thoughts, or my thoughts as they often used to be. You see, I have actually gotten over my desire to fly like Peter Pan and to be a real boy like Pinocchio. I did something both wonderful and horrible....I grew up.

I don't have the same dreams I used to have anymore. As I've gotten older, my desires, tastes and aspirations have become transformed, twisted around, refined, chewed up and finally disgorged as something the cat never even considered dragging in. In short....I'm different.

The apostle Paul said that when he was young he did young guy things; then he grew older and put away childish pursuits. For some of us this is good....for others it may mean having to avoid trading toy guns for real ones or you could end up like Charlton Heston, waving a rifle at a NRA meeting (personally, I don't think that's all bad....I'm on his side).

So when did we trade youthful zeal for aged contentment? Where did the fire in the belly get to? It moved into the fireplace to warm our aching bodies is where. And what about stamina? Remember how you could stay up for three days straight, stay out all night Friday Saturday & Sunday with three different girls (or women if you were lucky), play volleyball for six hours, ping-pong for four hours, cram for a physics final, take the final and pass, eat at least one whole garbage pizza, drive to the next state for ice cream, etc.....then get 5 hours sleep and be totally okay? Can't do that anymore, huh? I'm lucky if I can stay awake after dinner these days!

My body now makes sounds like my electric can opener (which I need for my arthritic hands) groans like my lawnmower (self-propelled of course 'cause my legs and feet are bad), Wheezings like my coffee maker, makes clicking and grinding noises like my car; also have shoulders and knees that go crackle and crunch every time I try to move them too far, and, oh yes, I have 3 degrees of eyeball enhancers with various stages of magnification: Normal vision, mid-range (for computer) and close up, allegedly for reading...except I know no-one who sits in the bathroom with a magazine held up 4 inches from their nose (Does anyone really read like that?). Come to think of it, I haven't seen anyone read like that sitting anywhere.

So there it is....I'm getting older. It's a tough thing to face at times, but face it we must because there ain't no stopping it or going back. And you know what? I don't wanna go back....I'm kinda likin' who I've turned into (by the grace of you-know-who) and now that I'm sixty-three years old and in such lousy shape, I have only one question......what's up for the next sixty-three years Lord? Bring it on!