AGE

My body knows exactly how old I am, but my mind simply refuses to believe it. That’s something I face every year when my birthday rolls around. I find it impossible to accept that new number. I think: That can’t be right?

            For some reason I always figured I would die young, of course now it’s too late. Much too late ! The solution might well be to forget birthdays in the future like a niece told me she intends to do. She corrected me when I mentioned that her birthday was coming up by saying that maybe she had a birthday coming up but probably not!

            When we were kids we were so proud to point out that we were: five and a half, or six and three quarters. Then we were so excited to finally reach twenty-one, weren’t we? Ever since then the years have been flying by, ever more quickly. And when we see a new age decade approaching we want to scream: Wow! Stop! We hope we could stop the passage of time, but no one is listening.

            All this, of course, is based on the fact that age numbers are such a big deal in our society as it has always been. “She’s 50? Can’t be!” or “He’s turning 60? Are you sure?

            Age presses on no matter how much we want to turn it off. Some members of my family are enjoying life in their 90s, something to crow about. Of course they feel that those in their 60s and 70s are spring chickens. So nice to hear!!