This past weekend my daughters and I went to Rosedale Mall to shop for a prom dress for my youngest daughter. There are "guidelines" attached to who and what I can write about in my blog, so needless to say this story will not be about prom dress shopping.
On this day the mall was filled with hockey parents and girl hockey players and all of the various family and friends that follow their loved ones to state hockey tournaments. All of which were wearing there team colors and those pins with their child's picture. Jerseys, jackets, hoodies, t-shirts, sweatpants and slippers were the apparel of the day.
As we walked through the mall I noticed this "older" man sitting on a bench. He stood out for many reasons. Mostly, he wasn't a hockey dad. At least not an obvious one. His appearance made me chuckle to myself. His hair was shoulder length, gray where it had once been dark. He had a neat beard and moustache also gray but not as gray as his hair. He was wearing a worn pair of jean with a few holes here or there and a long sleeve button up shirt of some soft looking pale blue fabric. And he had on a pair of "earth shoe" type shoes. A hippie grown older.
He made me chuckle because I thought he looked so out of place in the mall with all of the obvious hockey dads. And hippies from the 70's who are still hippies today make me smile. That's what I wanted to be when I grew up. Sometimes I think I've made it but I'm not always so sure.
Awhile later, I saw that he was walking towards me in the mall. He was busy talking to this woman walking with him. This was probably who he was waiting for when I first saw him sitting on the bench. She looked younger than him but only because her hair was still dark.
As I watched him (okay, he was kind of good looking, give me a break)I realized what I had labeled as an "older" man was in reality in his mid 50's! That realization really made me laugh. Being in our 50's does NOT make us older! Especially to someone our own age. Another realization was that maybe he wasn't a hippie grown old(but I'm pretty sure he was) but just someone who wasn't afraid to show who he was. Someone growing old that was still young at heart.
The older I get the more I know that I need to be me. Expressing what I am inside may show outwardly by how I dress, how I act or even by the things I do. Love the person you are inside and that person will shine through. Does it really matter what anyone else thinks about you?
The moral of the story is: "Don't judge a book by its cover. Just because the cover is old and worn, faded and broken it doesn't mean the story inside isn't still exciting and alive, shiny and whole." or "Let your light shine and to hell with what the rest of the world thinks."
No comments:
Post a Comment