I remember celebrating my sixteenth birthday and thinking that it was a watershed moment. Somehow the fact that I might legally drive felt like a turning point into the adult world even though I would not actually get a driver’s license until I was in my twenties. My widowed mother was not able to afford car insurance for me and I was not willing to work to fund driving, so I did not rush out to take a driving test like many of my peers. Nonetheless, sixteen simply felt different to me and that thought was reinforce when my mother gave me my first tube of lipstick along with a pencil skirt and a clingy sweater as a gift. Somehow it was her signal to me that I was no longer a little girl.
Twenty one was another milestone that impacted me mostly because I was finally of legal age to vote. Back in the day we had to wait until we were of twenty one to legally drink and cast our votes. It would not be until nineteen seventy one that eighteen year olds were given the greatest privilege of being a citizen of the United State. The first time I went to the poll it felt like I had arrived as an adult even though long before then I had already become the unofficial caretaker for my mother.
My fortieth birthday was supposed to be a big deal but it was almost a nonevent for me. Somehow nothing about that age felt any different than being twenty five. I was vibrant and healthy and still looked younger than I actually was, a trait that had followed me from the time I was a little girl. I had a teenage daughter who kept me young with her dancing and music and a preteen who kept my home filled with laughter. I actually felt as though I was just getting started on being an adult. I had a career that I loved, incredible friends, and an extended family that was as close as they come. My life was busy and almost flawlessly happy, so being forty barely phased me.
When I celebrated my fiftieth birthday I thought I might finally feel that I was turning a corner on my youthfulness. I had a mostly empty nest and grandchildren began arriving, but somehow I simply turned into an energetic Gammy and just kept going at full steam. I earned a master’s degree and qualified for the Master of Mathematics certification that eventually went bust after few were able to pass the test and school districts seemed unable to realize what the designation meant. I just kept breezing forward balancing multiple roles with seeming ease.
Even at sixty five I still felt like an unstoppable human dynamo. I imagined that few people actually thought of me as a senior citizen. I laughed at my AARP membership card and just kept going even as my life began to change dramatically with hints that maybe I was indeed entering a different phase of my life. Members of my family and beloved friends began to die. I found myself attending more funerals each year than parties. I developed arthritis in both of my knees and sciatica in my left hip. I was no longer able to spend ten nonstop hours working in my garden without paying the price of feeling as though someone had battered my body. Slowly I began to feel my seemingly bottomless pool of energy waning just a bit more with each passing year. Worst of all even strangers seemed able to tell from my countenance that I was no longer a spring chicken. the lines on my face and the tiny gray hairs on my head seemed to give me away.
Now I have reached my seventy fifth year and for the very first time I almost feel my age. I still measure my days with accomplishments and they are many. I am the mathematics teacher/tutor for ten students who keep my mind sharp and my laughter flowing. I read and write for hours every single day. I can clean my entire house from top to bottom in a single session but such excess invariably leads me to the bottle of Advil that I keep close by. I seem to lose loved ones at a more exponential pace and have grown to dread messages and phone calls announcing the illnesses or demise of those close to me in age. I now play the role of matriarch of my family and find that by definition I despise it because it means that I have lost the wisdom and guidance of the older women who were so important to me. I spend most of my days in a continual loop of routines that are not nearly as exciting as days of the past.
Somehow I am still a caretaker. Perhaps I was destined to play that role even before I was born. I’m still able to cook and clean and accommodate the needs of my older father-in-law, but unlike in the past I seem unable to do more than one thing at a time. I can walk but don’t ask me to chew gum while doing so. I appear to be my old energetic self but I fall into bed exhausted most nights. Seventy five has finally forced me to consider that I may not totally be what I used to be.
Just when I think it might be a good idea to allow myself to slow down a voice tells me to keep on trucking. I may be bent and creaky but my heart is strong and my brain is still working quite well. Like many of my peers I don’t yet feel ready to just throw in the towel and sit back to enjoy a view of the world. I know that I still have something to offer and I am determined to keep thinking younger than I am. I know that I can still make a difference. I won’t yield to the idea of feeling as though I have nothing more to offer. I continue to learn and evolve with the times.
I am my grandfather’s granddaughter. When he was my age he was still working. When he was eighty he purchased a farm and labored from dawn to dusk growing crops and tending livestock. At eighty eight he was installing light fixtures at NASA. When he turned ninety he purchased a new suit thinking that he might need to have one for his burial. When he finally died at the age of one hundred eight that suit was eighteen years old and quite worn.
I suppose that Grandpa’s blood traces energetically through my veins. My mind hears the number of my years and wonders if I am nearing final act of my story but then I shake my head and know that I’m not even close to feeling done. So as I celebrate my diamond jubilee I plan to just ignore the number of my days. They have never meant anything to me before and should not make a difference now. Somehow it feels as though I have only just begun.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 