This month marked a milestone birthday for me. It wasn’t a decade birthday, but it was the year I turned 65, the year when I need to sign up for Medicare, and the year when our federal government officially considers me as crossing the senior citizen threshold. While I understand government’s – and society’s? – need for line-in-the-sand age mileposts (think minimum age for drinking, voting, etc.,) I must admit, I am a bit amused at how I am now considered to be “old.”
Interestingly, it is not my vanity that is offended. My kids probably considered me old when I was in my 30s or 40s, and my students still like to laugh with me when I tell them I walked with dinosaurs when I share some of the earlier practices and beliefs for patient care. What amuses me is what others have often shared when they too crossed into the threshold of ancient civilization – and that is that they do not “feel” old.
Don’t get me wrong. I recently had a hip replacement a little over a month ago and shared with you what my first few weeks of recovery were like. And while I am back to actively enjoying life again, I am under no illusion that I can return to playing basketball with the same level of intensity I once had 20 years ago (a sport which caused my initial knee/hip injury), or that I should even contemplate trying a back handspring/back aerial with splits which I could do with ease during my youth. Nevertheless, I still “feel” the same emotional enthusiasm I had years earlier.
Perhaps that is where the duality of aging becomes the confounding variable. Other than through the chronology of years, how can we really measure someone’s emotional, spiritual, or biological age? I’m sure we can all relate to the 40-year-old who seems much older than their stated age in years or the spry 90- year- old who still has a refreshing zest for life. While we are beginning to unravel the physiological mysteries of aging, I’m not sure we will ever really understand what keeps us young at heart.
And that is what I hope to focus on most. Yes, I will continue to try to eat healthy foods and do my best to stay physically and mentally active. But I also plan on living life as ferociously as I can. I want to laugh hard and love deeply. I want to hug my husband, kids, and grandkids as often as I can. I want to let my friends and family know how incredibly grateful I am to have them in my life, and I want to sit on my porch with my cup of tea in the morning and thank God every day for the incredible beauty, smells, and sounds of nature which surrounds us.
Weeks before my 65th milestone birthday, my husband and family came to me with the generous offer to make the day special with a grandiose celebration along with a weekend get-away to a luxurious regional resort. I politely declined both (well, except for a small birthday party which promised lots of cake). Instead, I opted for a family get together at home and agreed to dinner at my favorite local restaurant (how could I resist a free dinner I did not have to make or clean up after). Walking hand-in-hand with the grandkids in the garden, telling them how to know the difference between male and female Monarch butterflies (males have a small black dot on their hindwing and thinner veins on their wings than females), and seeing their excitement when they catch and release a fish in our pond was a birthday present no party or resort could come close to matching. In the evening, we danced, and sang, and laughed, and loved each other with the ease and comfort families know around the world. After everyone left, Marty and I shared a bottle of Moscato, cuddled together under a blanket, and watched a few of our favorite shows. Then somewhere after midnight, we went to bed, exhausted but indescribably happy and joyful.
Best. Milestone. Birthday. Ever.
