Well, the other day I was laying on the floor and I got to thinking.

Why was a man of my age and respectability laying on the floor, you ask?

Well, if you must know, I dropped something and then I couldn’t figure out how to pick it up by just bending over, so I had to get down on one knee, only it was under the couch, so I had to get right down on the floor, and then, after I got it, the effort to get up seemed pretty steep, so I decided to stay on the floor for a bit and make it “worthwhile” and all, and think about some things. That’s why a man of my age and respectability was laying on the floor.

Besides, respectability aside, at my age, getting down on the floor is less of an activity and more of a destination requiring a reasonable stay.

So now you’re asking, what in tarnation was I thinking about laying on the floor?

Well, t’was this: Seems to me us older folk (yes, I’m talking to you) spend a lot of time inventorying stuff in our lives that is no longer in inventory. Some of the things are discontinued and others only available in limited quantities at exorbitant prices. Things like our hair, hearing, cartilage in various joints, memory for names, tight abs, and 20/20 vision. We had ‘em at one time, but they’re gone, yet we still spend time thinking about when we had ‘em … and, I guess, ruing the loss.

Oh yeah … and the ability to get up from the floor once laid out on it.

Well, in the quiet of the unintended repose I was in, it occurred to me that life was kind of like a ledger. And as we get older, on one side of the ledger there’s the aforementioned stuff we no longer have … call it the cost of aging. It’s quite a list, and, if we’re honest, it’s just getting longer. And it’s not going away, for sure. None of us, at least in our right minds, can say, “I’m not getting older.” That’s just denial.

But we forget sometimes, there’s another side to that ledger: the benefits of aging. Some that come to mind for some of us (and here I might not be talking about you) are Judgment, Perspective, Patience, Relationships, Knowing what actually matters, and the freedom to stop caring about a surprising number of things that never really mattered in the first place.

And, for most of us, when we tally both columns, we mostly come out ahead. We gave up some stuff, but it was replaced by what seems to me to be better stuff we gained along the way.

So, yeah, my hairline is retreating to the rear, but then so is a not inconsequential amount of fear. And while I struggle to remember names, I still remember all the stories. The six-pack abs are long gone (in fairness, they may have been more of a rumor than reality), but I can come up with a surprisingly easier way to do stuff that no longer requires ‘em. And hearing … well, let’s just say having people think I can’t hear very well increases the freedom to not respond to stuff I’d rather not respond to.

Oh, and one other: while it takes longer to get down on the floor, I’m much more selective in my reasons to get down on the floor in the first place.

Give me a second. I’ll get up in a minute. Or two.