It All "Depends"...

Last night I experienced a wonderful example of how attitude is everything. Our women's group, mostly aged 40+, met to have special prayer for missionaries during Easter week. As we sat together chatting as ladies do, someone mentioned all the flu-type sickness that has been going around our church, our town, and our state. Somehow the topic evolved into a discussion of coughing, coughing fits, and eventually morphed into the subject of *ahem* spasmodic urinary incontinence. It seems that this is a universal experience among women of a certain age. Yes, there we were all sharing stories of times we either coughed or laughed so hard that we wet our pants! We smiled and laughed at ourselves and each other, and all agreed that "age happens".

I later thought, how wonderfully upbeat this was, and what an example of attitude being so important. Age happens, and we can react in two ways. We can bemoan the fact that things fall apart (and fall south) or we can find others going through the same changes and laugh together about it instead. (When the eyes start to fail a bit, why not treat those new glasses as a fashion accessory instead of a flaw of age? It's all in the attitude!) For some reason, I am much more comfortable with myself at 40+ than I was at 20, when everything was in just the right place. Maybe it's more that my head is in the right place now instead of my body.

I had always heard the poem "When I Am An Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple". Now I understand that she was talking about the veins in her legs! I think this is the inspiration for The Red Hat Society, an organization of women facing middle age with humor and style. Well, my ladies and I, we have our own group and we have that same attitude. Except I guess you can call us The Wet Pants Society! As I said, it all "depends" on your attitude...