Be Here Now?

I work as a cashier at a big box store.  It's one of those super stores that is a department store on one side and a grocery store on the other.  Most of my colleagues are either very young, or 50-ish (I'm not sure what that says about the employment situation here, but that's a subject for another day).  Consequently, I ring up many purchases of alcohol.  "May I trouble you for your date of birth?" I ask anyone who looks over 35. To anyone middle aged or older, I might ask, "are you sure you're over 21."  It's fun to make a joke, but frequently I get this wistful, wry answer, "I wish I was 21 again...".

Well I don't wish I was 21 again.  

Don't get me wrong.  It was an interesting year.  But I really like who I am right now.

There is a book called "Be Here Now" by Baba Ram Dass, aka Richard Alpert, Ph.D.  It was very big back in the day.  When I was 21 I interpreted it in a sort of twisted Carpe Diem way...  When I had only one year of college to complete, for example, I quit school to live an urban commune.  It seems to me that I could have said "right now, I'm in school and I'm moving to a commune." But that was then, as they say, and this is now.

What I am learning today, and I hope I am continually learning, is that I pretty much like the person I am now, and while I am certainly a version of my 21-year-old self, I am definitely not the same girl I was way back then.

Having said all that, I could do without the aches and pains. I went to the doctor today because of a pain in my foot...turns out I have a Bunion and a Bunionette. The doctor, a young woman with some unrelated foot problems, empathetically recommended a particular shoe store. It won't make the pain go all the way away, but it was a great excuse to buy new shoes.

When my mother was in her last months on the planet, she celebrated her 88th birthday. A dear friend asked her, "if you could be any age you've been, what age would you wish to be?".

Mother asked, "how old am I today?"

"Eighty-eight" was the reply.

"Eighty-eight", my mother answered.

What's the lesson in that? Baba Ram Dass has nothing on my mother... Be Here Now.

Right now, I am a plumpish old girl with bunions (and a bunionette) and two pairs of new shoes.

Right now I am a healthy woman who is running at least 2 1/2 miles, four times a week.

Right now I am an employed person with pretty good insurance.

Right now I am breathing.

Thank You.