Editor’s Note: The eBook of “With No Regrets” is available for 99 cent from now to April 21.

In August of last year, The Three Tomatoes published my book, With No Regrets… Getting Older: Face It Live It Love It.

A number of my pieces focused on the “Face It” part of my title. For example, facing the unwanted changes aging brings in our overall appearance.

So in my piece “Where Did I Go” – I write about looking in the mirror and not recognizing oneself. No question that is a struggle for many of us, who don’t know how that older person suddenly appeared in the mirror when just “yesterday” it seemed a much younger person appeared that is now lost. I wrote more about other challenges and “struggles” inherent in the aging process, about my own struggles, always reminding the reader and myself of the gains that come with the losses.

But I published my book months before the CORONOVIRUS.

Then the CORONOVIRUS hit, the world stopped and we stopped.

Had I published the book post the Virus’ arrival I would make a major change, not to the text but to two words in the title:

                        “FACE IT” would now read “EMBRACE IT”         

If the Coronavirus teaches us anything, and hopefully it teaches each of us many things, the overriding lesson is that if we are getting older, it is to be not faced as if a problem. Rather it is to be fully embraced and welcomed with joy, enthusiasm and much gratitude irrespective of what struggles or losses come with it. Clearly post the Virus, any of those struggles pale in comparison to all those who now would just love to struggle with the great gift of just getting older.

And that brings me to what I wrote in my “Forever Young” piece about health. I wrote and now believe more than ever, “If you have your health you may have lots of problems, if you don’t have your health, you have only one problem.”

I am grateful and I hope all of you are also to have lots of problems, assuming also all our loved ones are safe and heathy. Well for me, I have such current problems as: 

• The “how to” deal with the stock market problem.
• The “how to” sanitize the sardine can problem.  
• The “how to” tuck the fitted sheet on my mattress problem.
• The “how to” cover my grey hair when all the salons are closed problem.
• The “how to” cut my toe cuticles when there is no manicurist problem.
• The “how to” cover my lines when no dermatologist is available problem.

Yes, I have lots of problems – I hope you do too.

I thank goodness I have them and I thank goodness I don’t have just one problem.

And for as long as I don’t have just “one problem,” I will work hard to embrace each and every day of getting older, not just face it.

I will embrace all the good it brings, and I will embrace and welcome all its challenges

And post this life altering Coronavirus, I promise with all my heart that:

There will not be a day that goes by

That I will not think how lucky I am

Just for the great gift of getting older

And the great gift of having many, many problems.

I hope you will feel the same.

Jane H. Goldman is a renaissance woman. For many years, she was General Counsel-Vice President of Warner Bros Distributing Corporation and thereafter litigation counsel to its parent company, Time Warner Inc. She now pursues and lives her passions, which include painting, sculpting, music, and writing. In addition, she won a Drama Desk Award as associate producer of the hit comedy “Celebrity Autobiography”. She received her BA from Barnard College and her law degree from NYU.  “With No Regrets…Growing Older: Face It, Live It, Love It” is her first book.