Growing older

By Sheena Sheppard

At 36 years old, I’m what my 16-year-old self would call…old. The problem is, I don’t feel…old. Yes, I have put on weight, and I dye my gray hairs every two weeks, but I still feel like the same person I was at 16! So what, I may have experienced life and matured. I have had children and sadly, I get up and go to work every day, but I still love my Whitney Houston, my Buju Banton and my Backstreet Boys. I still can’t say ‘damn’ in front of my mother, and I still lick the chocolate off of the Chocolate Digestive pack (sidenote, at $3 per pack, nothing should go to waste, right?)

What really amazes me is that in the 20 years that have passed from that 16-year-old me, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. At what age do we really grow up? We know it is an honour and privilege to grow old. A blessing as a woman to see our children grow into adulthood and become the young men and women we raised them to be.

It is my hope to live to see my grandchildren fill my home with laughter. Proverbs 20:29 says “The glory of young men [and women] is their strength, gray hair the splendor of the old.” So, as I age, and my grays shine in their splendour, I age, but maybe, just maybe, I won’t ever really grow up.