They say “time passes by quickly”.

I don’t know who “they” are, but they sure got that one right.

One day I was a teenager, sitting around with an old Sears “Christmas Wish Book“ opened in front of me, flipping through the pages and planning out every aspect of my future life . . . from my dishes, to my bedding, to the furniture for my non-existent kids’ rooms.

Next moment, I’m a pre-menopausal woman . . . closer to the menopause than the “pre” part . . . realizing that more of my life is behind me rather than in front of me.

There’s always been an ever-present niggling realization that all those things I’d carefully chosen for my adult life were never ever obtained; the children’s names I’d chosen early in life, never got used.

In some ways, it seems sad; a bit of a bleak reality-check.

In other ways, I’m completely okay with how things turned out–even if I’m still trying to reconcile my mind to my age.

See, the thing is, in many ways, I still think like that young girl of my past.

I still love children’s movies and dream of going on vacation to Disney, so I can wonder at marvels that are meant to impress children. I still have many of the same thoughts fetus-me had. I enjoy things typically enjoyed by a much-younger crowd, such as “You Tube” and video games.

Of course, now all those things are tempered by the older, wiser part of myself; the one that has over a half-century’s worth of knowledge and understanding backing it up.

And yet, there are still times when I feel like an infant, because there’s so much left to learn and so much still to experience.

While my mind feels as young as ever, my body is telling me I am most-certainly beyond the “youth” stage of life.

That’s a hard truth to reconcile!

I feel young. I think young. . .

. . . but my body be like: “Oh honey, you are soooo not young anymore!”

I remember a time when I would have looked at people my age and not only thought: “Man, are they old”, I also would have believed I’d have nothing in common with them.

Now I know, through experience, that young me would have had no problem relating to sage me, for we are one-in-the-same.

There may be more wrinkles. The joints may hurt a bit more. But the things that amused and fascinated me in my 20s still amuse and fascinate me in my 50s. There’s just more and newer topics that also fascinate me now.

I suppose the moral is that there really isn’t such a huge gap between the ages. Just because we grow older, doesn’t mean we grow stodgy.

We still tap our toes and bob our heads when our favorite songs come on the radio.

We can still relate to those things that are of interest to the youth . . . because we were not only there once, but the basics of life, for us, never really changed.

Our path may have been adjusted to accommodate for a few unforseen bumps in the road, but age, alone, does not turn us into completely different beings than the ones that we once were.

Life changes, but deep down, we remain innately the same.

We just may be doing what we love a little slower . . .

. . .and that’s okay too.