Sep 28 2008
Happy Birthday to Me!
Today is my birthday. I say that, not to encourage a group of well-wishers to chant greetings at me but rather, so that I can make this one important statement. I’m proud of my age!
I was born into a family that boasts a number of nonagenerians (people between the age of 90 and 99). I have good genetics. So far, my health has been outstanding. The only medication I take is a multi-vitamin and an added calcium supplement. My doctor says I have the blood work of a teenager. I think my odds of seeing 90+ are above average.
So, how then can I expect to boast about reaching 90, 95, or even 100 years of age if I spend forty or fifty years lying, denying or falsifying my true age?
There have been several women in my family who, over the years, have lied about their true age because they were older than their husbands - something that was not looked upon very highly in my parents generation. One, in fact, actually took the lie to her grave when her family had the wrong year carved on her gravestone. The only people who actually knew the truth were her siblings. Apparently her husband had even been successfully duped.
I don’t want that to happen to me. I’m happy to be alive. Every year I live is one more year of memories and experiences. Not everyone gets to live a long and eventful life. Whenever I die, whatever age that may be, I want the world to know that I got to flip the page on the calendar to a new year 80, 90 or 100 times. I don’t want to be short-changed by one minute.
Age, in and of itself, is not a curse. A certain age does not necessarily bring with it weakness, disability, mental confusion or uselessness. Every day that we live fills the vast coffers of our lives with more experience, memories (yes, some of them will be bad), dramas and events of day to day living. This is what life is! Not a holding pattern at some magical age of 18, 21, 39 or whatever place you want to imagine was the best time of your life.
This is the best time of your life! The here and now is the only time of your life! If 18, 21, or 39 was as good as it was going to get - guess what! I’m either dead or I should be. I’m not dead and I’m darned proud of that fact! I like being alive in a world and at a time when the future of the United States will be going down a path it has never taken before. I like being alive at a time where a tool like the Internet gives me access to information and people and places that I could not gain access to before. I like knowing that, even as much change as I have seen in my lifetime, there is unbelievable change coming down the road.
I want to be around to see that. And I don’t need to pretend I’m a few years younger than I really am to do that. Trust me, no one would believe me if I said I was 18, 21 or 39, so a couple of years is about all I could get away with.
Oh, and by the way, I’m 52 today.
