Negotiating a Birthday

I think birthdays make a person more reflective than they might ordinarily be.   I know that is true for me.

Next week is my birthday.  It’s not a milestone birthday, doesn’t require any great attention or special celebration.  This anniversary of my birth is just another stake in the ground that marks my progress through what has become a life that has already lasted longer than I expected.

When I was twenty, forty seemed to me to be the beginning of old age.  When I was forty I was sure fifty-five was the offending number.  By fifty-five I thought sixty-five, the expected year of retirement for many Americans, represented the year one crumbled into ruin.  By age sixty-five I found myself wondering what all the fuss was about.  It didn’t feel much like a milestone to me, and since I was immersed in a new career (retired broadcaster now working on the dark side of the print world) I thought sixty-five was a breeze.   I did give a slight shudder at the thought of turning seventy…but that was years away and who knew if I’d be here anyway?

Many of my generation, the Baby Boomers, had the mistaken idea we might live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse.  Dying young like Buddy Holly, James Dean or Marilyn Monroe meant you’d be forever remembered as a young, vital person and not as a decrepit oldster pushing a walker with tennis balls on the front legs.  Not a well thought out theory, since most of us are not famous or beautiful or exceptionally talented.  We do, however, have a growing population of people piloting walkers. 

The truth of the matter is, none of us expects to get old.  That’s not to say we expect or want to die young, we just think the aging process applies to every other human being except us.  It’s the only explanation for stopping in the grocery store to talk to someone you knew from high school and walking away thinking, “Goodness, he/she looks awful for his/her age!”.  What we don’t acknowledge is that both participants in that conversation are walking away with the same exact thought.

And so, time marches on; I have arrived at yet another birthday.  The changes over the years are more apparent, and the years are heavier some days than others.  I am now at an age where I must begin negotiations with my body each morning as I think about getting out of bed:

Body:  I don’t want to get up.

Mind:  But you must.  There are other parts of us who are demanding that happen; it’s not all about you.

Body:  No.

Mind:  If you get up and transport me to the bathroom I will give you a reward.

Body: (coyly) What kind of reward?

Mind:  Breakfast and two arthritis strength aspirin?

Body:  I’m tired of eggs, and you’d better consult the stomach about all that aspirin.  But…there is that left-over cheese cake.  I could talk to the arms for you if you want to get that from the back of the fridge.  And coffee! Nothing happens without coffee.

Mind:  Fine, coffee and cheese cake it is.  You rally the troops and we will get this body on the move.   By the way…you have a birthday coming up next week.

Body:  Wait while I groan and put our hands over our face, then we’ll bet this show on the road.

At my age I’m just grateful my body is still speaking to me at all; I’ve not treated it well over the years to be honest. My negotiations used to be much more direct: “Okay, do what I want, when I want for as long as I want, or I’ll bring this body to its knees.”  

That kind of rhetoric doesn’t work anymore; if I brought this body to its knees I’d never be able to get back up.

                                                         At every age….Life is Good.