It's Not Wednesday Yet!

So, lately, I've been catching myself whining to myself about how old I’m getting, about how my years of being extremely active are fading fast, about how I am running out of time to do the things that I've wanted to do. <sniff sniff>

(That wrinkle between my eyes has become so deep, that I swear you could grow corn it. I’m not joking.  This summer, right around the end of August, fully formed popcorn will fly off my face. Wait and see. Which is really not that bad compared to that Turkey-Flap that I’ve now got goin’ on underneath my chin. I am aghast. I was looking at pictures of myself recently, staring at how loose my skin's getting, and all I could think was, That just ain’t right! )

But everywhere that I look, I'm seeing reports of people older than me who are doing amazing things.

(I‘ve read the entire Harry Potter series since Christmas, surely that counts for something, right? I mean the eye strain alone should earn me major kudos, not to mention the elbow ache that I’ve endured from holding those books up so that my nearly 40 year old eyes can actually see the words.)

I read about Laura Vikmanis, who at 42, is the NFL's oldest cheerleader.  In her late thirties she went to a game, saw the cheerleaders, and said to herself, I've always wanted to do that. So, at 39, she tried out for the Cincinnati Bengals' cheerleading squad, the Ben-Gals. She made it all the way to the finals but didn’t make the cut. So, what did she do? Did she tell herself, See? You ARE TOO OLD, Stupid! What were you thinking? Those girls are nearly 20 years younger than you are! and then drag herself and her Depends back home to hide? No. She hit the gym and tried out the next year. And, she made the team.

I learned that George Burns won an Academy Award for his performance in The Sunshine Boys when he was 80 and that Meryl Streep, at the age of 61, has dug herself into a new demanding role, this time becoming Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. She is fearless and brilliant and I can’t wait to see her in this movie.

At 81, Benjamin Franklin effected the compromise that led to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.

I recently watched, Michael Jackson’s This is It! and discovered that, at the age of  50, he was preparing to spend hours and hours a night singing and dancing. He’d scheduled 50 tours (more?)  in Europe, alone.

I never knew that Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel on 17 March 1969, right before her 71st birthday (and she was a woman!)

A very cool fact is that at 100, Grandma Moses was still painting (Grandma Moses did not even start painting until she was 75 and did not get her first exhibition until she was 80) and that Bill Shoemaker was 54 when became the oldest person to win the Kentucky Derby.

I giggled to read about a grandmother in Northhampton, England who very recently took on a gang of jewelry thieves on the street with her handbag (and won) and I even found an Arab horse, Elmer, who, at the age of 37, (depending on who you ask, about age 5 -15 is considered “prime” for a horse) is still competing in Competitive Trail Riding.

I found it fascinating that a Belgian man, Stefaan Engels, finished his goal this year of running 365 marathons in a year, THAT’S ONE A DAY FOR A YEAR -  read : he ran 9,569 miles in one year. He’s 49.

But that is not the one that gets me, the one that gets me is that the previous marathon record was held by a Japanese runner Akinori Kusuda, who, in 2009, ran 52 consecutive marathons at the age of 65. Sixty-five! SIXTY-FIVE!!!

Yeah, A-Girl, SHUT UP! It ain’t over till you lay yourself down and give up. 

Here’s to years of great adventures still waiting on me!