On November 14th of this year, I turned 53. (Or should that be “fifty-three”? The former, according to The Chicago Manual of Style 18th edition, 9.3.)
When I was in college and graduate school, people around that age seemed so…old to me. They were teachers and professors and bosses. They had adult children who had children. They were well-seasoned people who had lots of experience with life.
So why don’t I feel that way? A large part of the reason is that I never had children. I think this had kept me young in some ways. I never had a position where I was someone’s boss. I never was a teacher or professor unless you count the little bit of teaching work I did in graduate school.
This is not to say that I have no experience with life. I gain more and more experience each year that I am alive.
“How did you grow this year?” you may ask.
I believe the experience which made me grow the most this past year was taking my mother to her surgery, which took place in a hospital located an hour from her home and from my home, and then taking her back to her home and caring for her for three additional days. Everyone who knows me well knows that I am an anxious driver. I don’t even like driving to the supermarket. In August, I braved congested interstates and speeding traffic to get Mom and myself to a hotel near the hospital. Then I battled constant anxiety: What if Mom falls in the shower in the hotel? What if I can’t find parking at the hospital? After the surgery, what if Mom suffers a medical emergency in the car on the way to her home?
Everything was okay. As it’s often said, “It was not done by me; it was done THROUGH me.”
This experience showed me how capable I am getting. And I will need to be more and more capable, because my mother is elderly and needs more and more care.
On to 53. Let’s see how much more capable I will get.
