As age ticks off with an increasing number, ever faster and faster, I find my sense of humor about growing older increases. Middle age and older presents a myriad of opportunities to practice the phrase “learn to smile at yourself and you’ll always be amused”.

My Rememberer

My forgetter’s getting better
But my rememberer is broke
To you that may seem funny
But, to me, that is no joke.
For when I’m ‘here’ I’m wondering
If I really should be ‘there’
And, when I try to think it through,
I haven’t got a prayer!
Often times I walk into a room,
Say “what am I here for?”
I rack my brain, but all in vain
A zero, is my score.
At times I put something away
Where it is safe, but, Gee!
The person it is safest from
Is, generally, me!
When shopping I may see someone,
Say “Hi” and have a chat,
Then, when the person walks away
I ask myself, “who was that?”
Yes, my forgetter’s getting better
While my rememberer is broke,
And it’s driving me plumb crazy
And that isn’t any joke.
Denny Davis

So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.
From “Nature” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Some years back I adopted the practice of announcing the age I would be on my next birthday several months early. It was my way of sneaking up on another notch on my birthday stick. So it has begun again this year here now four months before the anniversary of my birth. I am certain a psychologist would have a field day sorting out why I get satisfaction from telling people I am a certain age knowing all the while I remain a year younger. I am grateful for the joy it brings me to play this tiny little prank on the world!

At age 20 we worry about what others think of us;
At age 40 we don’t care what they think of us;
At age 60 we realize that they haven’t been thinking of us at all.
Denny Davis