Life in the sixties
It’s almost two years since I last updated. Two years? I have always had a hard time with chronology. I’ve occasionally put aside a project only to pick it up and realize it’s been six months since I touched the thing. I suppose that ability to tune out the passing of time, if it’s an ability or a damn problem I don’t know, plays into the following
This is not about life as I remember it in the 1960s. Nor is this a memoir or a self-help book or anything equally absurd. This is about the fact that I am in my sixtieth year of life. The anniversary of my birth is coming.
I don’t quite know how I feel about this.
I mean, obviously I’m glad to be alive. I shouldn’t say obviously, but I am glad to be alive. I’m not glad in a horribly chirpy or annoying way, I hope. I’m not sorry I’m alive though I haven’t yet decided whether or not I like the twenty-first century. Seriously, it’s a messy world.
I do know how I feel about my sixtieth birthday coming. I’m surprised.
Sixty doesn’t feel real to me. I must be about sixty in age, I know. I have a birth certificate with numbers on it. I have memories of the early 1960s. I remember the assassination of President Kennedy and I remember the nightmares I had when that happened. I remember the arrival of the Beatles in America which was a very big deal. There are people alive who remember when I was born. No getting around it; I’m sixty years old.
I’m still surprised, maybe even a little amused by myself.
I won’t say I don’t feel my age. I have a heberden’s node at the base of my left thumb. I have reading glasses and I damn well need them, particularly for reading instructions on packaging. I have lots of pairs of reading glasses because I’m always leaving them somewhere. That isn’t a sign of age with me. I’ve been mislaying my glasses since I began wearing glasses in first or second grade. I can’t guess how many times I nearly missed the bus because I was running around the house trying to find my glasses. Love-hate relationship with my glasses. I don’t like them but seeing clearly is sometimes necessary.
I never really was a healthy, sporty sort of person excepting a few pursuits that interested me and still do. My body’s process of aging is both annoying and amusing, at least to me.
I failed Vanity 101 and yet I own more makeup than anyone who isn’t a Kardashian needs. That’s because I like to play with makeup. It’s coloring on my face. Vanity in the sense of trying to hide the signs of the years I’ve been here on earth is a different matter. I laughed when someone earnestly told me about a great anti-aging doctor she knew. I swear I thought she was joking. I like to spiff myself up but it’s indulging myself, not in the hopes that someone much younger than I will think I’m his age. I don’t get that.
I know I’m older. None of my doctors with one exception are anywhere near my age. When I first met my new FP I had to fight the urge to go ask reception why there was a twelve-year-old pretending to be a medical professional. He doesn’t look that young but he sure is a good twenty-five years young than I am, easily.
The president of the United States is younger than I am. You’d think I’d have gotten a clue that I’m in the upper percentage of age now. Somehow none of any of this applied to me. But here I am on the edge of sixty. Wow. Mind is blown.
Sixty is old. Really. Only a real optimist would call me middle-aged because one hundred and twenty years old is not a likely age to reach.
One of the signs of aging is supposed to be increasing political conservatism. Nope, not guilty. I’m probably more liberal than ever. I just don’t understand conservatism on an emotional level. I don’t. I don’t want to, either.
Why am I surprised a bit by my age?
I don’t think it’s a cognitive issue. I know my name, I know where I live, I know the name of the President and the PMs of England and Canada (showing off) so that’s okay.
I don’t think it’s an emotional or psychiatric problem. My PTSD and anxiety issues are really the at the best they’ve ever been. My depression is manageable. At worst I give myself a day off. Sometimes I’m tone deaf to a situation I’ve walked into but, hell, that’s been forever. I did once go to work and look at the people I usually shared a pre-work table with and say “Why’s everyone so quiet?” only to be shushed and then told that a young man we worked with had died early that morning.
I will say if someone chirps “Sixty is the new forty” at me I will minimally give them the stink eye. I’ll show you my damn dental bills. The battle to keep teeth in my mouth rages on. I inherited my mother’s dental legacy and she only had about four teeth in her mouth when she was sixty-five. The battle to keep my melanin-rich spots from killing me has never stopped.
So here I am and I’m surprised and a little bewildered. I never thought I’d make it to sixty. To be honest I never thought I’d make it thirty, but as I haven’t been drunk in over twenty-six years I’ve got that one credit to my name.
It’s a puzzle.
This might be a continuing series or might not if I lose interest in the topic. I could easily lose interest in the subject because my age is just a thing that is.
I’m still not profound, you know. I still care deeply, sometimes too much, but that’s me and always has been.
And that’s the thing; I’ve changed in practical ways but the me-inside is still me. I suppose I wouldn’t want it any other way. I’m not perfect but at least fifty percent of the time I think I’m basically all right. Basically okay is a decent starting point to begin any journey, right? But at my chronological age…hmmm, this bears some thought.
This is not about life as I remember it in the 1960s. Nor is this a memoir or a self-help book or anything equally absurd. This is about the fact that I am in my sixtieth year of life. The anniversary of my birth is coming.
I don’t quite know how I feel about this.
I mean, obviously I’m glad to be alive. I shouldn’t say obviously, but I am glad to be alive. I’m not glad in a horribly chirpy or annoying way, I hope. I’m not sorry I’m alive though I haven’t yet decided whether or not I like the twenty-first century. Seriously, it’s a messy world.
I do know how I feel about my sixtieth birthday coming. I’m surprised.
Sixty doesn’t feel real to me. I must be about sixty in age, I know. I have a birth certificate with numbers on it. I have memories of the early 1960s. I remember the assassination of President Kennedy and I remember the nightmares I had when that happened. I remember the arrival of the Beatles in America which was a very big deal. There are people alive who remember when I was born. No getting around it; I’m sixty years old.
I’m still surprised, maybe even a little amused by myself.
I won’t say I don’t feel my age. I have a heberden’s node at the base of my left thumb. I have reading glasses and I damn well need them, particularly for reading instructions on packaging. I have lots of pairs of reading glasses because I’m always leaving them somewhere. That isn’t a sign of age with me. I’ve been mislaying my glasses since I began wearing glasses in first or second grade. I can’t guess how many times I nearly missed the bus because I was running around the house trying to find my glasses. Love-hate relationship with my glasses. I don’t like them but seeing clearly is sometimes necessary.
I never really was a healthy, sporty sort of person excepting a few pursuits that interested me and still do. My body’s process of aging is both annoying and amusing, at least to me.
I failed Vanity 101 and yet I own more makeup than anyone who isn’t a Kardashian needs. That’s because I like to play with makeup. It’s coloring on my face. Vanity in the sense of trying to hide the signs of the years I’ve been here on earth is a different matter. I laughed when someone earnestly told me about a great anti-aging doctor she knew. I swear I thought she was joking. I like to spiff myself up but it’s indulging myself, not in the hopes that someone much younger than I will think I’m his age. I don’t get that.
I know I’m older. None of my doctors with one exception are anywhere near my age. When I first met my new FP I had to fight the urge to go ask reception why there was a twelve-year-old pretending to be a medical professional. He doesn’t look that young but he sure is a good twenty-five years young than I am, easily.
The president of the United States is younger than I am. You’d think I’d have gotten a clue that I’m in the upper percentage of age now. Somehow none of any of this applied to me. But here I am on the edge of sixty. Wow. Mind is blown.
Sixty is old. Really. Only a real optimist would call me middle-aged because one hundred and twenty years old is not a likely age to reach.
One of the signs of aging is supposed to be increasing political conservatism. Nope, not guilty. I’m probably more liberal than ever. I just don’t understand conservatism on an emotional level. I don’t. I don’t want to, either.
Why am I surprised a bit by my age?
I don’t think it’s a cognitive issue. I know my name, I know where I live, I know the name of the President and the PMs of England and Canada (showing off) so that’s okay.
I don’t think it’s an emotional or psychiatric problem. My PTSD and anxiety issues are really the at the best they’ve ever been. My depression is manageable. At worst I give myself a day off. Sometimes I’m tone deaf to a situation I’ve walked into but, hell, that’s been forever. I did once go to work and look at the people I usually shared a pre-work table with and say “Why’s everyone so quiet?” only to be shushed and then told that a young man we worked with had died early that morning.
I will say if someone chirps “Sixty is the new forty” at me I will minimally give them the stink eye. I’ll show you my damn dental bills. The battle to keep teeth in my mouth rages on. I inherited my mother’s dental legacy and she only had about four teeth in her mouth when she was sixty-five. The battle to keep my melanin-rich spots from killing me has never stopped.
So here I am and I’m surprised and a little bewildered. I never thought I’d make it to sixty. To be honest I never thought I’d make it thirty, but as I haven’t been drunk in over twenty-six years I’ve got that one credit to my name.
It’s a puzzle.
This might be a continuing series or might not if I lose interest in the topic. I could easily lose interest in the subject because my age is just a thing that is.
I’m still not profound, you know. I still care deeply, sometimes too much, but that’s me and always has been.
And that’s the thing; I’ve changed in practical ways but the me-inside is still me. I suppose I wouldn’t want it any other way. I’m not perfect but at least fifty percent of the time I think I’m basically all right. Basically okay is a decent starting point to begin any journey, right? But at my chronological age…hmmm, this bears some thought.