Pat Bean's blog

Aging My Way

Women just can’t make up their minds. That’s a comment I heard often, especially in my younger years. It was never meant as a compliment.

Age, however, has taught me that having the ability to change one’s mind, to make a U-turn, even if it’s in the middle of rush-hour traffic, is actually a strength.

I mean, we’re all human, men and women alike. And though there are some out there who think otherwise, none of us are perfect. I would hate to even start to count up the number of mistakes I’ve made in my 84 years. But I’ve learned that nothing stops me from changing direction when I do.

It’s actually a lesson that began filtering into my brain when I was about three years old, and innocent enough that I actually ate a spoonful of dirt at the urging of some older kids who were teasing me. They pretended to eat the dirt while telling me it was yummy. All I can recall of that incident, which is one of my first memories, is that I didn’t take a second bite.

Even so, I was almost 40 before I accepted that it’s not a weakness to change one’s mind.  Since then, my life has been better – and oh so much easier because I no longer fear making a wrong decision.

After all. I’m a woman. And everyone knows, we women simply can’t make up our minds.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.