The Privilege of Aging
Today I am happy to report that I just celebrated my 48th Birthday! Exactly a year ago on January 18th, 2017 I had my third surgery to remove my right ovary with a grapefruit size tumour attached. I spent my 47th Birthday in the hospital. Fortunately, the hospital staff made the day extra special for me and I want to give a shout out to the nurses and members of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Centre here in Miami.
Last year I was praying for my life and contemplating all the reasons why it is so special to spend time on this planet as a human being. Having the privilege to move about in this physical body and experience the input of our 5 senses. Experience love, and touch, joy, brilliant images of beauty, as well as sadness and pain. It is all part of the package and it is why we come here to spend time here. This year, I contemplated the privilege of ageing and being here for many years and the beauty and wisdom that ageing brings. A friend of mine said to me last week:"Wow you are turning 48? That's so old!" I responded: "No, it's a privilege!" When I was 20 years old, 48 sounded ancient to me. It was my parents' age. It was everything that I did not want to be. When I turned 40, I thought my life would stop. There was nowhere to go from here for sure. I didn't even want to tell people my age. At the time, we had a housekeeper from Peru. She was with us for many years. A wonderful lady, who tried to teach me Spanish. In our round about ways of communicating, she tried to explain to me that turning 40 was a wonderful privilege and a reason to celebrate because I had made it. I had no idea what she was talking about! Sure enough, I was about to find out how precious it is to be alive and to grow older on this beautiful Earth. Being diagnosed with Cancer in the summer of 2012 certainly changed my life and sent me on a journey to learn what that privilege means, the hard way! I am so grateful for this journey and the lessons that I have learned. It is a great feeling to be sure of ones' place and path. It is wonderful to be able to share this life and help others along. I wouldn't want to miss it for a second and don't regret a thing. And with that feeling of certainty comes the understanding that so many things that once seemed important are not really real. They are just imaginary and distracting. None of the clothes, jewellery, cars, houses, jobs, etc... in the world can give you this feeling. Only the certainty of who you are and your birthright to be that and chose that can give you this feeling. For me it has come through age, through the struggle with dis-ease that forced me to choose life and share as much of it as I can. For that reason, and to celebrate, I organised a beach clean up with my friends to give a little life back to our mother earth, that gives us life everyday. It is my belief that we need to clean up and heal our living environment as much as our own bodies in order to live a healthful life. It is a full circle of healing and I pray that I contributed a tiny spark in the effort that so many people already participate in. Today I can honestly say: "I am proud and happy to be 48 in 2018 and am looking forward to many more years of learning and sharing my life with you"!
P.S.: If you are interested in helping clean our beaches, there is a great organisation called volunteercleanup.org. They have organised cleanups almost every weekend. Cleaning beaches gives a better beach experience to us humans, but it also saves so many lives affected by our human waste!