I admit I don’t have many romantic thoughts or feelings about age. There is a myth going around that youth is the best part of life because of the opportunities ahead and a strong, eager body for most.

I knew good people then; I know good people now. I met awful and miserable people all along the way.I was one of them.

My truth is that there is no perfect time of life. Life is the whole picture for me, not just one chapter. For me and many others, youth was a time of making one mistake after another and giving myself a long list of regrets.

I don’t need to hang onto them. I don’t need to romanticize them either.

I am wiser for sure. I’ve learned what mistakes I need to avoid, and I understand the mystical value of doing good to others, which I never thought much about for most of my life. I was too busy making mistakes and worrying.

A spiritual path has enriched my life and my understanding of it. So has Maria, which is apparent.

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I am grateful to those people who pushed me along to the great projects of life and encouraged my better dreams.

But when I think about it, my dreams were more destructive than wonderful. I didn’t know enough to choose the right things; I’m just learning that now.

I have come to see nostalgia as a poison for many older people. Of course, it makes sense to think about the days when you didn’t hurt when you stood up or walked, and rarely saw a doctor or went to the pharmacy.

I didn’t take a nap until the last year or so, when it became something I look forward to for much of the day. It’s when I plan for the future, not miss the past.

It’s another mistake to make the past the golden time, the best point of my life. It’s a mistake to make it the shrine I worship once we’ve moved – or been moved – into the final stages of life.

The idea of looming death still doesn’t feel quite real to me, but my body is hinting otherwise, and so are the pills showing up in the bathroom.

I don’t romanticize life, death, or youth. Death is something I have to deal with because a lot of people I know are dying, and I will be one of them one day. I’m not too far away. I have the same philosophy about that I have about dying dogs.

We will all die.

I can either accept it or let it eat me up and drain my spirit.

I don’t mourn the dead; I give thanks for knowing them and for the people who remain in my life. Mourning seems to be a natural feeling; I respect it, I see how painful it can be, but dwelling on death is an almost certain way to slow down, and for good.

Nostalgia is not simply a matter of recalling the past or mourning it. Nostalgia is an addiction to the past and immersion in it. Immersions in the past are just another way of dying, shriveling up, and avoiding the present.

Joah Chittister writes that the melancholy of nostalgia need not be the story of old age. I want better stories to tell.

Every stage of life has been fascinating to me, and in many ways, I’m a much better human being (and a happier one) than I was when I was young, when I was an almost total terrified mess.

I believe that nostalgia is a trap for those worn out and tired of living, of adjusting, of accepting. I want to keep up with life to the extent it is possible, and I am happy to say I am. It feels good.

I’m a storyteller, but I’ve recently realized I am beginning to tell good stories, all about the path, meant to make people laugh and entertain others. I’m doing some thinking about that. It feels as if I am telling too many stories, just like my old uncles did while I stifled my yawns.

I want to make and tell new stories, one that keeps people awake, not asleep. I’m not alive to entertain people. And there’s this: my sister, who knew me well when I was young, said the other day on the phone: “You’re a lot more interesting than you were as a kid.”

Hmm.

I want my life to be all about the way I look at life now, not then.

The trouble with nostalgia for me is that it takes me out of the present and locks me into the past.

The good thing about nostalgia, when used properly, is that it reminds me I can also live through this phase of life with grace, some wisdom, and real insights, not fantasies and obsessions for the future.

That could be a story worth telling.