it's that time of year again

My birthday is tomorrow, April 30, and I'm going to be 63 years old.  

The 60s have freaked me out a little bit.  But this year, I think maybe I am OK with it. I mean, really, what choice do I have?  I can be OK with it or I can be miserable.

Or as I think of it, you can fight against the current or go with the flow but you are going downstream regardless.

So it is with living.  Every kind of life ends the same way.  

And as one of those organic beings that has undeniably passed the halfway mark, my ultimate demise and the condition of my being in my last years occurs to me more often than it did when I was still young and more energetic and raising my children and building my business and who the hell had time to think about old age.

I'm working hard on acceptance in advance since my chosen path did not result in monetary riches.  And none of us really knows the future that awaits, what thing or when it will strike that might put us 'at the mercy'.  

If we reap what we sow then I'm probably fucked anyway considering my mother, with whom I did not have a good relationship, was stuck with me. So I do what I can to stay healthy and cognizant.

I look in the mirror and I see my aunt, sometimes hints of my grandmother.  That's sobering. I look at my elder sister and see our grandmother and sometimes our mother. In my family, my sister is the matriarch. Everyone from our parents generation has already passed.

Actually, I think I like being older. I like that being older is so much less intense. I can just walk away, I don't have to engage. I speak my mind without fear. I don't have to tolerate bullshit.

I mean, we all have to put up with a certain amount bullshit in our lives, right? Stuff we need to endure through familial or work relationships. When you're young you are still trying to find your way, climb that ladder, competing and acquiring. You have responsibilities to the older and younger generations.

Well, I've fulfilled most of those obligations for good or ill. They are behind me. And I think I've achieved as much as I ever will and I'm OK with that.

What I want for the rest of my, hopefully long, life is to just be content.