Do ever feel like you go from one pressing thing to the next? I thought life was to slow down by my age.

I was always under the impression that as we aged we would come into our own and eventually get a nice rocking chair for our front porches.  I am coming upon the age that my Grandma Gladys cherish, well she may not have cherished it, but she was so proud of it, her senor citizen discount.  When she turned 55 she proudly told any, and all that gave discounts to 55 year olds, she was collecting on her discount, my Grandfather Jim, her husband tried never to use his right  up until his death at 67.  He didn't embrace his senior citizen hood that way she did.  Sadly my beloved Gladys only got to use hers for 5 years, maybe she knew she needed to get on it while she could.  Ok, so I am a few years off and I am not sure that 55 is considered a senior citizen by any one in this day and age.  I am looking forward to my discount with the same thrill of savings as my Grandma did though. 

I find the older I get the more I have to do, I have daughters to raise, lots of grands to help raise. Is that a job that most seniors have? I truly think it was Gods intent but it got lost when our society became a single family home society and walked away from the large extended family home that had been a part of society for eons.  It was how families lived until the modern times.  Society walked away from the family and became independent and compartmentalized.  I wonder if that is where apartment got it's name, ok I jest, but with that Independence we lost so much of the "family" in our lives.  Families are not the same thing as they once were and the meaning changes more each day.  I do think sometimes there is a resurgence of that need for family and in some ways it is becoming more and more seen.  Generally need changes our barometer in this world.  If we are riding high on the bubble we seem to need people less, and especially are families. During a time of recession we remember why we are a family unit, why we aren't animals that birth our young and walk away.  We relearn why the grands and the great grands lived near us or with us, it had to do with sharing the load, sharing the prosperity and sharing the love.  I read recently that up to 25 percent of kids were being raise by Grandparents, I don't know maybe it was a faulty percentage but maybe not.  It seems that the harder the times the more we remember who is important to us, and how they matter in our lives, sort of a comfort food mentality.  I do know that the older members of my family, extended, weathered the "Great Depression" and they knew what family was down to their very core.  They were part of the "Greatest Generation" they cared about their fellow man and died in droves to secure our futures, the futures of their children and grandchildren. 

I don't know why the rocking chair got thrown off the porch, maybe it is for the better maybe grandmas and grandpas running marathons and climbing summits is a good thing but I fully intend to find my rocker in the next 25 years and sit in it.  Maybe I can rock with my great great grand babies and then send them home, but if they need to be staying with Great Nannie they will be as welcome as the current generation. Family is next to God in my book and if you can't love and take care of your family how can you really do any of the other things God calls you to do?  So I guess I do have to figure out how to get all of my pressing chores done because sure as shooting I will have more things on my list keeping me from my rocker before the day is out.  Do you think maybe that is why Grands marathon now? running from the complications we have invented in our lives to keep us off our rockers?.... tomorrow.