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Chick Wit: Not quite Young, but Improved

I get a lot of great fan mail, but sometimes it's less-than-adoring. For example, somebody recently wrote to me, "You call yourself 'middle-aged,' but you're already 59. Do you think you're going to live until you're 118?"

I get a lot of great fan mail, but sometimes it's less-than-adoring. For example, somebody recently wrote to me, "You call yourself 'middle-aged,' but you're already 59. Do you think you're going to live until you're 118?"

Not very nice.

But then again, absolutely true.

And though I generally don't pay attention to the occasional hater, this time I did. Maybe because her e-mail arrived around the new year, when we all think about the passage of time.

I considered her point, and it changed my mind.

I made a decision.

I won't call myself Middle-Aged anymore.

From now on, I'm going with New-and-Improved.

Because that's exactly how I feel.

Why should detergent have all the fun?

I'm at least as cool as a box of Tide.

Because age isn't about Age.

It's about how you feel inside.

I know I'm not the first person to have this thought, because we've all heard the expression, "You're as young as you feel."

But, frankly, that expression never resonated with me.

Why?

The truth, at least for me, is that I don't feel Young.

And in my opinion, that's a good thing.

Let's get real.

I'm not going to lie to you.

(Because we weren't born yesterday.

And how great is that?)

I know I'm not Young, physically. I own a mirror and I'm not delusional.

My body doesn't look the way it did when I was Young. I have more dimples, and not on my cheeks.

At least not those cheeks.

I also have a lot more laugh lines.

Because I've had a lot more laughs.

Years of them!

Which is great!

Plus, my body doesn't feel the way it used to when I was Young. My back aches in the morning, and I gain weight easier.

Not that gaining weight was ever a struggle.

We all have our cross to bear, and mine is chocolate cake.

My cross is a fork.

Yum.

The truth is I feel energetic, happy, and excited about life. These are characteristics of Young, but not all of Young.

At least not my Young.

When I was Young, I wasn't in control of my life. I didn't even try to be in control of my own life. I didn't make good decisions, I went along with letting others make decisions for me. I didn't have my own agenda, but I followed the agendas of others.

How do I know I did this?

When I was asked to do things, I could never say no.

I used to feel guilty when I said no.

I wanted to make everybody happy.

So I ended up fulfilling a million obligations that I didn't want to, and I turned my whole life into a Things to Do List.

And it wasn't even my Things to Do List. It was everybody else's.

It took me 50 years to figure out what I was doing wrong, and how to fix it. I started saying no, and the world did not end. Then I kept saying no, and it got easier and easier.

It takes practice.

All risk does, and all change. The more changes you make, the easier it is to change.

And I taught myself that every time I said no to someone else, I was saying yes to myself.

At the end of the day, some people still liked me, some didn't.

Either way, I didn't die.

On the contrary, I started living - my own life.

It was New for me, and definitely Improved.

So here we are.

If you used to call yourself Middle-Aged before, why don't you join me?

Let's change history.

Our own personal history.

We're all New-and-Improved!

lisa@scottoline.com.