Thursday, October 19, 2006

I'm How Old???

Last night John and I finally both had some time to just sit and talk (actually I guess we made time since it was 1:00 in the morning and we both were so tired). Things have just been busy and by the time night rolls around we're tired from a long day and we just want to watch a little tv and then go to bed. It felt wonderful to talk though.

During our conversation we starting talking about a woman at our church. John said she was 27 years old and I quickly said, "No, she's my age - I remember asking." John just looked at me and said, "That is your age." And it hit me. I'm 26, almost 27 years old. I usually forget that that's how old I am. I keep thinking I'm only 22 or 23, and even that seems old since I feel like I'm barely done being a teenager. So all I could do was laugh and say "Oh, that is my age, isn't it?" I should clarify that I do not really think 26 is old - I don't even think 40 is old. It's just so much older than I feel I should be. As I told my dad once, old age is relative to me. The older I get, the older "old" is. It is always at least 30 or 40 years older than what I currently am. =)

When we were at the hair salon yesterday getting John David's hair cut, I looked over at the clock and noticed that the hour hand was going rapidly around. In one minute's time, the clock had gone a full 12 hours. Isn't that a perfect picture of life - passing us way too quickly? I hugged my babies a little tighter after that. =)

Here's a good story that John's mom sent me earlier in an email and it goes so well with this post.....

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the
quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the
unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few
hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of
coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a
typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems
to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio
in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came
across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice.
You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting
business. He was telling whom-ever he was talking with something about "a
thousand marbles." I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had
to say.

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they
pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family
so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy
hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you missed your daughter's
"dance recital" he continued. "Let me tell you something that has helped
me keep my own priorities."

And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."

You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person
lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live
less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.

"Now then, I mul tiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the
number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.
Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part.

It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in
any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over
twenty-eight hundred Saturdays." "I got to thinking that if I lived to be
seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went
to a toy store
and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three
toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside
a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear."

"Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it
away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the
really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time
here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."

Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my
lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a
little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."

"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your
family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 Year old
Man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!"

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off.
I guess he gave us all a lot to think about, I had planned to work on the
antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to
work on the next club newsletter..

Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey,
I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked
with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we
spent a Saturday together with the kids. ! And hey , can we stop at a toy
store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles....

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