Thoughts about turning 70.

by barbara.wilkey

I remember when I was much younger, I used to think twenty was old, then thirty and on up as I aged. Naw, they were just years. Today, I 've made it to seventy. My brother, Dan, sent me a text for a birthday wish and asked, "When we were little kids running around Maple Street, did you ever think about being seventy?" Of course, I didn't. I was a little kid. He's almost two years younger than me. My husband is positive he's really old. Hmm, he's four years younger than me. What does that make me? I'm concerned about that, well, not really. My soon to be ninety-two year old mother, can't believe she has a daughter who turned seventy. Hmm, Mom, you're ninety-one. LOL But a very young ninety-one, next month to be ninety-two.

I have noticed that I still do the things I want to do. Age has not stopped me at all. It's just that I do them slower. Not positive that's a good thing, but it did happen. I still go to the gym and work out everyday.

I do have a few thoughts on what I've learned as I've aged. This one struck me hard. There's a difference between being ignorant and being stupid. I used to think they were the same. Nope, they're not. Ignorance: 'lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about a particular thing.' Stupid: 'having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense.' Brian Herbert put it this way: 'The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice." I've come to realize through the years that I have very little patience with people who choose not to learn. It's a fault of mine that I'm working on.

I'm not pleased with attempting to switch to digital currency, what's wrong with old fashioned dollars and cents? It doesn't make sense to me. It seems if people use bank cards and credit cards, it's eaiser to get into debt. Using cash, you know exactly what you're spending and how much you have left. Of course, this idea is coming from our government. How much has our debit risen to? Oh, yes. 34 trillion dollars. That's somebody I want to listen to. The government has proven to be the opposite of fiscally responsible.

Another thing, I'm not too pleased about is going to electric cars. Let's think for a minute, where do we get electricity. Oh, yes, that's right we get it from coal. Steam coal, also known as thermal coal, is used in power stations to generate electricity. Next big question, how is coal produced? "Coal is formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Coal can be extracted from the earth either by suface mining or underground mining. Once coal has been extracted, it can be used directly (for heating and industrial processes) or to fuel power plants for electricty." Another thought, when the winters get really cold, we don't have enough electricity to warm our houses, what are electric cars going to do to the power grid?

I could continue to go with subjects like this forever and cover a gamit of issues, but that's not my purpose. Maybe sometime, I'll decide to tackle some of these issues. I do have well researched opinions about them.

Onto happy subjects, grandchildren are the best part of having children. It doesn't get any better than that. My grandchildren's ages range from twenty-six to three years old. I've enjoyed all of them immensely. They've brought nothing but joy to my life. I could go into great detail about how great they all are, but I'm sure you get the picture.

Retirement, this May I will have been retired for three years. I thought retirement would be a lot different. I thought I'd have tons of leisure time and wouldn't know how to fill all the extra time. NOT!! I'm now considering retiring from retirement. I'm still searching for leisure time. There's always something that needs to be done.

I'll stop now. Just a few ramblings from an old lady.

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