Spring Showers Can Boost Your Age Esteem

It’s raining !

Spring brings rain where I live in Europe. Lots of rain.

Sitting here on the bus I hear others complaining that “enough is enough”. It has rained for five consecutive days.

I love walking in the rain. As a child I used to beg my mother to let me go outside and stomp through the puddles. Sister Susie and I would take a couple pans from the kitchen, so we could concoct a witches’ brew with wet leaves, flower petals and some wiggly worms. We hated it when Mom called us inside.

Even today I love walking in the rain. Stomping in puddles with my grandchildren is still a favorite experience. Rain is refreshing and renewing. It seems to wash away worries, leaving room for new ideas and expression.

These feelings of renewal and playfulness are important to our age-esteem. They help us live the age we are with joy and pizzazz. In AgeEsteem: Growing a Positive Attitude Toward Aging, chapter 2, page 16, tells the story of breaking loose from our programed behavior and to begin Singing in the Rain to free the child within you.

When we let the child within us come out to play, we use all of our senses. It frees us to raise our faces to the sky to feel the raindrops, and even taste them. We smell the newness of nature, listen to the sound of the rain on different surfaces, watch drops seemingly bounce on the sidewalk, and laugh with pure joy as we also renew and revitalize our age-esteem.

Bonnie Fatio