I’m in my early 30s, and for better or worse I don’t give much thought to getting older. I don’t look ahead to what my life will be like 20 or 30 or even 40 years from today. It seems very distant, and in some ways it is. But we’re all going to be there one day. I thought about this recently when I covered a spaghetti dinner fundraiser at Irondequoit’s Christ the King Church. There were a lot of seniors in attendance, and as the event wore on and the dinner portion ended, many took to the dance floor. I recall thinking at the time that I was personally too tired to dance, and I’m 40-plus years younger than these people! This wasn’t awkward, mechanical, middle-school slow dancing either — it was bold and energetic. These couples in their golden years were making all the whipper-snappers in attendance look lazy. But it wasn’t necessarily the act of dancing or even the spring in their steps that impressed me most, it was the sparkle in their eyes, the expressions of sheer joy, as if they were discovering something new and wonderful, even after 70 or 80 years of life experiences. Watching these couples gave me hope that I would have that kind of zeal in my later years. Now all I have to do is learn to dance.
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