My chapter book

As I get older, I see more of life, and less of the material side of things. More of the emotional and less of the physical. More of the positive, and less of the negative. More of the fun side of life, and less of the depressed. I see more of what is important in the long run, and less of the short term self gratification.

Life starts at 40, I have heard some people say. I never understood that at all and thought people must be saying that as a sarcastic remark. Now that I am 45, and my youngest is moving away to go to school in June, I understand the statement....and it is true. I am entering a time in my life when the fun really starts!! I can be away from home guilt free. I can pursue things that I have wanted to for years. I feel like I have entered into a whole new chapter of my life, and I am enjoying every minute of it!

I have always wanted to learn how to ballroom dance, and now I am. I have joined a singles dance club, and we meet every second Saturday. I often go to other singles dance clubs on other Saturdays that ours doesn't meet. For the first hour or so of the night, we have a dance lesson, and then after that, it is just a free for all dance and we have a great time. My children give me a hard time because I often come home in the wee hours of the morning after they are already home from their night out. It is a very clean, non drinking, pleasant night of fun, fun, fun! I have learned how to Fox Trot, 2 Step, Jive, as well as a few different styles of Swing. Just this one evening of dancing makes the rest of the week always bearable no matter what comes about. I am meeting a lot of people and my circle of friends is growing. This is always a good thing. We started as a small group of four, and now have grown to a larger group of about 12. We have become a tight group, and very supportive of each other.

I have also made plans to do a lot of hikes this summer. My friend and I are meeting to plan out which ones we will be doing this year. I plan to spend most of my non dancing weekends out hiking and biking in the mountains. That is my favorite place to be!

As my children are older and moving on to very successful lives of their own, I enjoy watching them grow and experience life in the beginning chapter of their adult life. They are good people, and they know what they want and where they need to go to get it. I am also starting the old-age chapter of grand parenting, as my first grandchild is due the first week in June. I am so very excited about this event, and wish that he would be closer to me and the rest of my family here.

My work is good as well, and I feel blessed to have a good employer with great benefits, and holidays and sick days. Being that I never get sick, my personal days accumulate, and give me the option of taking days off when I need them for other special events. This is a huge blessing because it gives me the opportunity to go away and get paid even though I am not working.

This new chapter of the freedom side of my life also allows me to put time into my martial arts training whenever I want to. I can't explain why, but years ago, I had way less time to myself, and yet I trained much harder. I am still a very busy person, but still, I have more time to train than ever before. Yet...I train less than I used to. I need to pick up the pace, and push myself harder. Now is not the time to slack off. Now is the time for me to really dig my heels in and become the martial artist I truly want to be. I have no excuses.

So, yes, I agree that life starts at 40, or even at 45. I loved raising my kids and it was a very exciting and rewarding chapter of my life. It was a long chapter of my life and I worked hard to raise my children to where they are today. It was a growing experience for me as well. My children taught me insurmountable things about life, about what is really important, and about the true meaning of success.