I just celebrated my birthday and I'm not going to tell you my age. I think this is definitely an indicator that I must be feeling older! I've been wondering about what makes a person young or old a lot recently with the impending turning another year older. Jon and I get to meet so many different people that I've observed the amazing differences that one 55 year old to the next has in their apparent youngness or oldness.
It seems to me that energy is key. Energy not only in having it to 'do' things, but also this fire we have inside of ourselves. We can never let that burn out or we definitely become old in an instant. People that might be way up there there age but have this fire and energy seem so young. I love that! I wonder how a person achieves this?
One thing my grandmother always said is that "the day you stop learning is the day you die". I don't think she meant it literally, of course, but more that the fire will die and you might as well be in the ground. I think this is one way to keep the fire kindled. What other ways are there? Seriously, I want to know.

Okay here is what I've come up with:
I think sex/sexuality must be up there. That's self-explanatory.
This idea leads to the need to keep the physical body in line through our aging. This is definitely an obvious one (and one of the hardest to keep up with, ugh!) Diet (salads, veggies, etc.), exercise, balance. Well, I think we all know to keep these up.
The idea of keeping the physical body in check leads to the need to keep the spiritual self in balance and nurtured as well. This is essential too. How we each can achieve our best spiritual self is difficult to know because of the so many different paths one could take. It seems to me that we are all in a constant flux of searching in our spirituality. Sometimes we feel really solid in our spiritual being, and other times we are searching. Regardless of our religious background or faiths. Maybe this is kind of like to never stop learning. If we stop seeking our fullest potential as spiritual beings, then we might as well be dead.
That's all I can think of for staying 'young'. Of course, that is besides the Hope in a Jar I smear all over my face nightly.

On the night before my birthday, I had the wildest dream about reaching my full spiritual potential. In the dream, I discovered that on my birthday I found out I had powers that allowed me to basically work tiny 'miracles'. I could change the color of someone's shoes and make them shiny. I could make someone ill to their stomach or make them feel good and healthy. I could do a lot of wild things. I found out that this was what had been eating me up inside my whole life and that was why I always had felt off. It was that I hadn't reached my potential and now that I knew about my 'powers' I could finally do it. The other part of the dream that was clear to me was that we all had these powers but we just didn't know it and didn't know how to use them. My mother was elated in the dream and congratulating me on my achievements, the way she used to congratulate me on winning a swimming race or making an A+. It was was so weird! Then at the end of the dream, I was like " oh, I think I can levitate..." then I woke up. Happy Birthday, Jenn.
Somehow, I don't think I'm going to levitate anytime soon, but I'm certainly going to try to stay 'young' and all that comes with it.