The Perfect Age

Bette Davis once said, “Old age ain’t no place for sissies.”

I awoke in the middle of the night recently, and as happens in the wee hours, odd things pop into your head. I could not remember how old I was, and I hadn’t the capacity at that hour to subtract the years in my head. So I counted on my fingers: 1951 to 61 to 71, etc. When I realized I was going to be sixty this year it shocked me! “Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the heck happened,” said Cora Harvey Armstrong. Boy ain’t it the truth.

I don’t feel as if I’ve been around long enough to claim sixty years of experience. Age is a relative thing, isn’t it? In your teens, you think someone in their thirties is old. By the time you’re twenty, forty or fifty seems old. At fifty, seventy still seems young. Coming up on sixty, I look at eighty-somethings and see the youth still in them.

I do not think of myself as old. How could I? I am only sixty. There is a place card on my dresser that states, “Each age has its own special joys and experiences. I am always the perfect age for where I am in life.” This is so true. I hear people say they wish they were twenty again, or forty, or any age than what they are. There is no age I would go back to; each stage of my life has brought me new awareness and new rewards.

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for fewer gray hairs or a flatter belly. Old age is a gift. I am becoming the person I have always wanted to be. As I’ve aged I’ve become more kind to myself and less critical. I’ve learned to forgive myself for my failings, and learn from my mistakes. I have lived long enough to have my hair turn gray and to have my laughter forever etched into the lines on my face. And although I fight against those signs of aging, I am blessed. So many have never laughed and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.

I sometimes despair over my body; the wrinkles, the sagging butt and the extra pounds. But I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body and dive into the waves with joy, despite the disapproving glances from the bikini set. They will get old too if they are lucky.

I like being older. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I will not spend my time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what might be. I will try to find the joy in each day, the freedom to be had in each passing year. As I once read, “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, champagne in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ‘Woohoo, what a ride!”