Thoughts on sixty years...

As I do almost every morning I am watching the approaching dawn.  August 16th and the sun waits until 6:30 to crest the trees. Now, at 5:40 it is still dark, pre-dawn. The trees are black, the grass is silver with dew and barely a hint of what I know is green. The sky is palest ivory with brushstrokes of grey. A monochromatic world which even as I type the next word is changing. Lightening up.

I am thinking about this turning sixty. I have been here sixty years! The alternative of not being here makes me throw wide my arms and say Hallelujah! I am here and healthy and happy!  I am aware of lightening up myself as I get older. Aches and pains are not so worrisome, they are just reminders of a day spent working. I had a tick bite checked out recently and the nurse asked me if I felt more tired. I looked at her and laughed. And said, "Yes, but I thought that was just part of getting older. I kinda like a little nap sometimes." That is a guilty pleasure, lying down under a cashmere wrap and just resting for a half hour, reading maybe.

My broodmares are already at the gate, waiting to be fed. They are quiet, foals at their side, heavy with the next one. I have a mare now that is very crippled on one leg but she manages. Is very careful as she walks and very tolerant of the colt jumping at her to play. I stoke her neck and murmur, " We are a pair, with our bad knees." If she can do it,  so can I ride into my nineties. And ski. And foxhunt.  I think I will walk over in my dressing gown and feed them as they are so patiently waiting. I would not have done that in my thirties I would have dressed first. They are my kids now.

Three children. I think back on breakfasts made, lunches packed, soccer games, lacrosse games, dance recitals, swim teams ( which they all hated), tears dried and broken bones healed, noses wiped and fights refereed. I think of the gales of laughter and food fights and helping me with the horses . They can all ride tho' nobody does, and they can all yell at a horse to make it behave! I smile at friend's grandbabies, happy to hold them, and wonder how I managed to do all that. Three wonderful, awesome people that I am so proud to know and be part of their lives. I am a lucky lady.

One of my favorite authors, Doris Lessing, and Margaret Mead, the anthropologist, both wrote about the idea that women have three mates in life. Maybe not everybody, but they make the argument that it is not uncommon. I subscribed to this and believe I was blessed. The first was short-lived, a mismatch but he was very good-looking. The second, according to the aforementioned experts, is the mate we pick for childrearing and nest building. Mine was a great guy, needed me to help him reach a dream and together we had children and built a big nest. I turned a old tobacco farm into a horse farm and am living my dream. The third is the mate that we grow old with and is perhaps the best one- for me -yes! I have a wonderful husband who is also my best friend. I had to find a guy slightly younger to keep up with me! But oh so handsome!

So I am happy to be sixty and looking forward to the next sixty (my son, Sam, told me last night that the world's oldest man is a Bolivian and he is 123 years young!) Just think what I might accomplish in the next half of my life- hoping the knees keep up and the husband!