Remember When

I was listening this morning to the Alan Jackson song, "Remember When," which is quite a lovely song, but it made me think of something of a pet peeve I have.  Here are the lyrics I'm talking about:

Remember when
we said when we turned grey
when the children grow up and move away
we won't be sad
we'll be glad
for all the life we've had
and we'll remember when

A lovely sentiment, right?  When you're younger and think about getting old, it seems that you plan to sit around and reminisce about what you did when you were "not old."  Turns out, not so much.  A recent Gallup poll showed that the older people get, the happier they are.  I'm guessing it's not because they're sitting around reminiscing about how happy they used to be.  Nope, it's because older people have more fun.  Now, this is a secret that we used to keep amongst ourselves, but of course, the baby boomers are getting older, and they can't keep their mouths shut, so word's getting out.  Getting older is fun!  The kids moved away, so we get the house to ourselves.  We get to set our own schedules more and more, and some of us have even retired (not us yet, but someday!).  We get to travel more, to places we want to go.  We've also learned a few things, and, one of the most important things, we have grandkids.  Yep, those cute little critters are a key to happiness, in my book.  So, we don't sit around thinking about what fun we had 20 years ago.  Nope, we think about what a great time we had last weekend, and how much fun we're going to have today!