Bonnie Brown

By Bonnie Brown 

Columnist

Believe it or not, we have just passed the halfway mark in 2025.  Yes, July 2 was the mid-point.  And one fun fact.  We will officially be closer to 2050 than 2000.  Let that sink in!  The Y2K bug fears and the Bush-Gore election were a quarter of a century ago.  

It seems like such a short while ago that I put away the few Christmas decorations that we had out.  And I was shivering in the cold wintry weather we were experiencing.  The wind seemed so bitter too.  I was complaining about the cold and thinking about the warmer weather I was eagerly anticipating.  

Well, I got my wish.  It’s definitely summer and it’s definitely hot!  I often reflect on my younger days when summer seemed to be the longest season.  There was lots of swimming, lake time, hanging out with friends, and even helping my mom in our family’s garden.  I had small hands, so it was my chore to wash the canning jars.  No dishwasher at that point in our house.  

Summer meant no school assignments to worry about.  No lugging books around all day.  Our school year didn’t start until after Labor Day.  And even after Labor Day, we still had warm weather and more summertime fun before the weather turned cold.  Which seemed to happen overnight.    

The school kiddos are already getting close to a new school year.  But I doubt they are thinking about that right now.  However, I’m sure their parents are since they have to think about school clothes and school supplies.  

And then there are the shoes which are so expensive nowadays.  As a kid, I wore Keds  and flip-flops during my summer months but had to get shoes for school, sturdy and hopefully long-lasting.  And I always wanted the latest style which was usually pricey.  

We get so caught up in our routines, we may fail to stop and do a check on our New Year’s resolutions.  Are we on task with those goals we set on January 1?  Do we need a reboot to get back on track with our goals?  Perhaps we need to realign our expectations.  

Time seems to speed up when we get older.  No more lazing away the days.  We have work, we have responsibilities, we have commitments.  In our early decades, we are busy building our lives.  

We have to decide what we want to be “when we grow up.”  That may take more time than we imagined to craft a lifestyle and career that fits us.  We are busy figuring out what we want out of life.  It’s a challenge.  Sometimes things just happen for us and sometimes things take years to figure out.  

In our mid-life, we realize that time is speeding by.  We may or may not have been successful in achieving our goals.  We might even need a reboot as we approach our final decades.  

When we realize that we have achieved senior status, life slows down in the sense that we do less.  We don’t take on new experiences as we did in our mid-decades.  We downsize and are not as adventurous as we once were.  Is that a bad thing?  Not really.  We’re more conservative.  We are more reflective.  And hopefully, we’re looking back on a life well lived.