I will not go quiety into old age...

Looking back through the foggy, and often revisionist annals of time, I distinctly remember being around 23 or so (I did mention foggy), and wondering what it would be like to be 30, 35, 40...would I still be the same? Would I feel like I did then? Would I enjoy the same things? Have the same emotions? As I remember those trepidatious questions, I feel a little foolish realizing how naive I was, because, as I have now discovered all these years later, I am and always will be, me. Leni Musick Hester. Queen of all I survey. Just a slightly more...mature version. Trouble is, my brain seems quite happy with who I was at 23-ish and looking in the mirror is just confusing because, in my head, I am younger, thinner and better looking that that middle aged grandma looking back at me. That is okay though, because you couldn't pay me to be 23 again! The angst! The drama! The acne! Nope, I'm good right where I am...okay, I wouldn't mind the 48 year old brain and emotions IN the 23 year old body, but since that is not currently an option, I'm good with being short, roundier than before and living large. I wouldn't trade the 29 years with my husband and the life experiences that I have had for anything. The trouble is, I must admit to being a little afraid of the whole getting REALLY old thing and more importantly, the part about what happens when you STOP getting old. For now, I have decided to believe that, just as I discovered that I feel just the same at 48 as I did at 23 (with the addition of a few more aches and pains), I will undoubtedly feel just the same at 80 as I do this very moment (with the addition of even more aches and pains unless medicine really improves in the intervening years). And in my opinion, being me is a completely acceptable and adventurous thing to be!