There are two things I know the new year has in store for me, that is if I manage to continue breathing, the first is a sixtieth birthday in March and a trip to Hawaii soon after. Someone wrote on my Facebook page that sixty is the new thirty. What? Excuse me? No, sixty is sixty. I have no wish to be younger than my son, that is just weird. Unlike many people, I have no desire to turn back the hands of time. I love being exactly who I am, where I am and the age I happen to be. I don’t know about you guys but society’s fascination with looking forever young bores me to tears and makes my face wrinkled. I am not quite sure of what everyone is so afraid? Perhaps they see aging as the monster under the bed they so feared as a child but I see it as a comfortable progression and more like a well fitting cushion on a favorite rocking chair…it fits me. Of course, my older brother might tell you it is because I look considerably younger than my actual years, but no, it is because I live my life rather than regretting that I didn’t. Wouldn’t it be great if companies could make products to correct problems that really matter? How about a formula you could smooth on called Smile Cream? I think it would be great if we could get a company to invent a detergent to wash clothes in called Happy Suds…Guaranteed mood enhancing enzymes to make every day a joyous experience no matter what comes your way! Or how about a cream you could put on someone else called Temporary Problem Eraser…For those moments when you just need to get someone out of your face temporarily so you can regroup, breathe, and think without them! Don’t you think life would be so much more fun with all those wrinkles ironed out than the ones on someone else’s face? Of course, wrinkle creams, plastic surgery and the search for eternal youth will go on no matter what I write or think. People will always think and feel if only they could capture from the outside what they lack on the inside the good of life will find them and fill them. I do not judge their decision but feel a sorrow for them because they do not see in themselves what I do. Of course, we all know I am weird and I see something magical in this crazy old world and most all things in it. As I sit writing this on this last day of 2011, I wonder if these were to be my last words how I would describe the life I was given and the answer is…knew how to use her heart. In my almost sixty years on this earth I have offered my heart to the world without reservation, without question and without asking for anything in return. It has been stomped on, run over, laughed at, abused, made fun of, ridiculed, cherished, befriended, lost, found, fooled, loved, hated, envied, ignored, wanted and not, many times over but nothing has ever deterred my want to present it. Nothing in life can be gained without risk and no experience can be had without venturing out to find what is beyond your own skin. Neither of my parents had many years on this planet. I hope I get many more than did they but should I not, I will not regret or be saddened by the ones I did spend. A life worth living is lived with worth, purpose, meaning, and heart. I shall be happy in 2012; happy to turn sixty, to get more wrinkles, more knowledge, more experiences, more laughter, more irritations, more life. Hopefully I will also be lucky enough to write two of my articles to you from the beaches of Hawaii in 2012 and that will be a look through my window not even I thought I would be seeing! I love you all with all my heart.