The emotional roller coaster

Middle age is more difficult than I had imagined. I remember when my parents were my age - the golden years they call them! I was a newlywed, stuck at home with little children, with no money to spend on anything - I thought that theirs' was indeed the ideal, golden age. They had money to spend on leisure activities, they traveled all over the world, and they ate out at restaurants regularly....it was my fantasy! They seemed footloose and fancy free, Still young enough to enjoy the best things in life, and with the ability to hire other people to do their most mundane tasks like cleaning the house or painting a room.

I had no idea then that my fifties would be such tumultuous years.

Now the reality of this age is very real to me. It's a time of "high highs" and "low lows" and my emotional stability is sometimes in question. Just these past two years have been such a roller coaster in our house that I sometimes feel seasick thinking about it. Less than two years ago my mother died - a devastating loss to me. Within the same year - about ten months later - my daughter had a son. What a joyous occasion! When only a few more months had passed my husband's mother died, leaving another gaping hole in our family. Then, less than two months after that our son was married to a wonderful girl that we all love - a real celebration! So within the time frame of two short years our family has lost two dear members - and welcomed two new ones. Wow.

I don't know, but it seems to me that when you throw in the other things we deal with at this time in our lives, like the aches and pains of aging bodies and the difficulty of doing some of the minor tasks we used to take for granted - well, it's not such a golden age after all.

And, unlike my parents, we are scrimping like mad to afford a little travel to see some of the places in the world we have dreamed of seeing for a very long time. And we've not yet figured out how to find enough extra money to hire someone else to do the painting and cleaning.

But - all in all life is good and I shouldn't complain I know. I'm just actually looking forward to my sixties now, hoping that maybe they'll be a little more "golden"...