Henry, the husband of a friend of mine, once said, “When I was little, I thought to myself, ‘I’m going to remember how good candy tastes when I grow up because it’s obvious that adults don’t remember; otherwise, they would eat as much as they want now that they’re adults. They must forget how good it tastes. I’m going to remember.’”

This came to mind as I was talking to a couple of my much younger co-workers about getting older. I told them that I thought at some point you must get tired of what life requires of you: tired of your morning routine, tired of paying bills and fighting with insurance companies, tired of clipping your toenails, tired of getting your haircut, tired of making your bed and tired of cooking and cleaning. They both looked at me like I was crazy. But then I thought of Henry and how when you’re a younger age, you really don’t understand people who are older than you.

I remember when my parents quit going places because they “didn’t like crowds.” I thought, “How could they miss out on this just because there will be a lot of people?” And now here I am not going to as many places where there are crowds. I tried to unravel why these big crowded places don’t give me the same kind of joy as they did when I was younger. I could only come up with one reason: I’m tired. I’m tired of the traffic, tired of looking for parking, tired of the noise, tired of long lines at food stands, bathrooms and ticket booths, and tired of just trying to get through the crowd.

My mother swore she’d never get an artificial Christmas tree. And yet, one Christmas, we went to her house and there in the corner was a beautiful but artificial tree. I turned to her and said, “What?”

“Oh,” she said, “I know, the tree. I just got tired of having to go out and get a tree every year.”

I expect to have a living Christmas tree for a long time, but I’m not going to say I’ll never have an artificial tree. As much as I can’t imagine it, maybe one day I will just get tired of having to go out and get a tree every year.

But I don’t want to give up all of these things because I’m older and tired. So, I’ve decided to make a concerted effort to play, to continue going places and to keep buying a real Christmas tree.My grandchildren help me. I jump in jumpy houses at their birthdays. We play hide-and-seek and “monster chasing.” Sometimes, we just lay on the floor and talk and wrestle and fling ourselves around. Or we pull a blanket over our heads and tell each other stories.

They remind me of the joy of doing something over and over again until you get good at it, of singing just for the sake of singing.

We bake cookies and we all lick the spoons and spatulas. We eat ice cream cones when Mom isn’t looking. We paint each others’ faces and change our clothes two to three times a day just because we can. We laugh a lot.

And on special days, when everyone has been really good, we go to the shop and buy some candy. They pick out their favorites and I usually pick Bit-O-Honey or licorice laces because those were my favorites a long time ago before I forgot how good candy tastes.

Laura Alexander is a San Rafael resident. IJ readers are invited to share their stories of love, dating, parenting, marriage, friendship and other experiences for our How It Is column, which runs Tuesdays in the Lifestyles section. All stories must not have been published in part or in its entirety previously. Send your stories of no more than 600 words to lifestyles@marinij.com. Please write How It Is in the subject line. The IJ reserves the right to edit them for publication. Please include your full name, address and a daytime phone number.