Crossing over...looking back

In exactly five minutes I am officially an old person.  I don't feel it. I don't look it. I sure as hell don't act it. But "I'm IT!"

In the sixty-five years I've been on the earth I have learned a lot - most of it useless. But not all. Here are a few insights I can pass along.

1. Never be a passenger on a bus full of church members, or church choir members, or church members going on a pilgrimage.  Those buses always seem to roll over a cliff killing everyone inside.  I've never ridden on a church bus - that's why I'm still alive.

2.There are no bad foods.  The only really bad foods are the ones you've stuffed in the back of your fridge and forgotren about. This would include, but would not be limited to, cheese that is hard and covered with white or green fuzz. A dimpled, egg shaped marble that began its life as a lemon. And anything in Gladware or Ziploc plastic storage containers that hasn't been opened in months and is unrecognizable and pungent.  All of the research I've read concludes that the "bad foods" (think "cheesy potatoes") in congregate take a few months at best off your life.  This might mean the difference between living to 85 or 85.4. You decide: Cheesy potatoes or four more months of tapioca.

3. Motherhood is not a Gerber commercial. Children are not always a blessing.  I've tried to pass this little nugget on to nieces and nephews - I hope I live long enough to hear them say "I wish I'd listened to you..."

4. Limit time with perpetually happy people. They'll drag you down. You can't be them. (All that happiness could might justify the purchase of an assault rifle just to shut them up.)You could , however, find out what pills they are taking and what doctor is handing them out. Studies have demonstrated that there are happy positive genes and there are negative genes. I come from a family of doom spreaders. The grass is brown on both sides of the fence. But, on a more cheerful note, you don't have to mow dead grass.

5. Sex with the same person year after year is boring. There I've said it.  There's a point where you know every move so well you could plot it on a Google Map.

That's enough- I've now been sixty-five for 37 minutes.  WTF?  Time to go to bed and gaze over at my husband in his Darth Vader CPAP mask, watching him sleep while I listen to the whining, wheezing and hissing of the machine that keeps sleep apnea from killing him.  The golden years have begun.