Getting older isn't easy, in many ways. It can be hard to accept your fate of getting older. Maybe you creak and crack a bit more than you're used to. Running out of energy quicker than the past. It can be hard physically, and mentally. And sometimes, it can be even harder to just accept it as a whole.
I had a good conversation with Chad Kozun, the president of Swift Current Minor Ball about aging. We are both avid baseball fans, and played throughout our lifetime growing up, and into our adult years. I had recently made the decision I'm going to go back to playing slo-pitch again, after about a 5-6 year hiatus. We discussed 'going back' to playing ball, and how it just wasn't quite the same. As he mentioned when he did it, once he got in the dugout, the players were different. Much younger, he didn't recognize as many faces as he used to. It just wasn't quite the same.
Am I fearful of the same? Certainly. I look at this as a test year. It's one thing to go back and play with new individuals. But I'm the Toby Keith song, "I'm Not As Good As I Once Was." I don't run as fast as I used to, I have arthritis in my knees. Things just don't work quite the same. But in my mind, I'm still diving for baseballs on the field to show my skills. The hard part is accepting I just can't do that anymore.
Aging can be beautiful, though. There's a lot of great things that have come with age, including wisdom(I hope, anyways), a wife and 3 beautiful daughters, and a return to a job I loved dearly, but last held 16 years ago. So aging isn't all bad. But I've also become warmer, all the time(don't touch the thermostat), and have had to request some assistance with some of the new social media advances. If you can accept that things change, they don't stay the same, I think getting older is a privilege that unfortunately many don't get the opportunity to experience for whatever reason. So smile, and enjoy the time you have. Even if it means supper at 4:30pm sounds like a great idea.