Learn to Spit!

Billie Houston writes sweet romance and Christian themed romance novels. She is a widow, the mother of three, and the grandmother of seven wonderful grandchildren. She is also a former English teacher and has worked with special needs children

Her venture into Christian romance began when her husband of many years fell victim to Alzheimer's. She writes romantic tales about relationships, stories that explore the problems and pleasures of living a Christian life. The plots revolve around ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances and faced with difficult decisions.

Billie likes poetry, George Strait's music, old movies and Earl Grey tea. Her hobbies are reading, quilting, sewing, knitting, crocheting, taking long walks, and growing house plants and herbs.

If anyone is in a position to offer opinions on aging, it's Billie. She's 95 years old, and still writing! Here's what she has to say on the subject of growing old UNgracefully.

When I am an old woman I shall… go out in my slippers in the rain, and pick flowers in other people's gardens, and learn to spit. - Jenny Joseph from the poem Warning

Negative views about the elderly are prevalent in our society today. Many hold the belief that 'older people' are set in their ways, living in the past, and can't be taught new tricks. Anyone over sixty is sliding into illness, impotence and immobility. Confront those beliefs and disregard those assumptions. Better yet, set about to debunk them, because they simply are not so. The older we get, the less our undertakings and activities can be predicted by our age. I would, with a great deal of confidence, lay odds, that any randomly selected three-year-old in America today is becoming proficient at walking and talking. The average eight-year-old is in the third grade, the average eighteen-year-old is probably a high school senior. I would not dare to predict the activities and accomplishments of any randomly selected individual between the ages of sixty and one hundred.

Today older people are not just living longer lives, they are living healthier lives and they are living them differently. Grandma and Grandpa are no longer residing in the homes of   their children, safe, secure, and respected in their extended families. Too often it's the other way around. Grandma and Grandpa have inherited grandchildren from offspring who, for various reasons, won't, or can't, shoulder the responsibility of being parents. It's also often true that Grandma and Grandpa are charged with the care of even older ailing or disabled parents.

If you hope to practice the art of aging ungracefully, you have to know right up front that old age is not for sissies. That's what I said, ungracefully. Aging gracefully equates to accepting what's expected of you at your age. I'm here to say disregard what's expected of you. You don't have to go along with the crowd. You may find you like yourself better if you choose that less-trodden path.

Capture and hold onto a positive point of view. Being an active, productive seventy-five-year-old is more cheerful and more hopeful than being a disgruntled forty-five-year-old. Don't use your idiocrasies or your quirky preferences as an excuse for laziness or apathy. You cannot dream yourself into what you want to be. That doesn't mean you shouldn't dream. It does mean you can't let dreams become your master.

Change your perspectives. Toss out old habits, like negative thinking. Recapture the love, awe and wonder you felt for living when you were a child. It's wonderful to be childlike.

Rid yourself of old prejudices. The world changes; so do ideas and concepts. I'm not suggesting you give up your beliefs and convictions. I am suggesting you re-examine some of your opinions and preferences.

Let go of old regrets. You can't change the past. You can come to terms with it. Now might also be a good time to settle old differences and patch up fractured relationships.

Shift your priorities. Acquire new thoughts. How? By pursuing new experiences.

Attempt new undertakings and please, don't let someone sell you the old idea that you're too old.  Mary Baker Eddy was 87 years old when she founded The Christian Science Monitor. Pablo Picasso was engraving and drawing at 90. When she was 100 years old, Grandma Moses was still painting. Dream new dreams, perhaps less grandiose, more practical dreams, but don't ever stop dreaming and hoping.

Keep a sound philosophy. Don't let age be an excuse for learning new ways to be stupid. In your pursuit for new things, don't forget the old. Recognize and cherish those constants in your life. Make time for your family. Make new friends, but keep the old. Guard your health and take care of yourself physically.

Build a new image. Reinvent yourself. Dare to be different. Dare to be you. Does that sound like a contradiction in terms? It isn't. You can change and still be yourself; moreover, you can change and still be true to yourself. Read the biographies of some successful people and you will discover that often the key to that success was their ability to change, go through metamorphoses, re-invent themselves over and over again. Cary Grant once said something to the effect that his greatest role was playing Cary Grant.

Expect some rainy days. Learn to accept adversity. Sometimes a kick in the rear will send you further up the ladder of success than a pat on the back will. Learn to deal with rejection. Confront the culture that wants to stick you in a niche or discard you like an old shoe.

And don’t forget - learn to spit!

Billie Houston's most recent release is "Whither Thou Goest", available on Amazon. Here's a brief description of this historical marriage of convenience/romance:
Resigned to being an old maid, Elizabeth Holt works at the library and lives quietly in the small town of Cedar Gap, Texas. The 1929 financial crash leaves her penniless and devastated. Her devious aunt Lavinia has squandered her inheritance in the stock market.
Reverend John Reardon has recently become the pastor of a church in Cedar Gap. Unbeknown to the congregation, the chairman of the deacons invested the church’s assets in now worthless stocks. When the bank forecloses on the church and parsonage, Reardon trades his furniture for lodging in the house where Elizabeth lives with her cunning Aunt Lavinia.
John tries to make the best of living in a house with a manipulative schemer and a woman who trusts no one. He is running out of options when Elizabeth makes him an offer he can’t afford to refuse.