Jackie Wells-Fauth
Before you even read this, I will have turned 70. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that one, because as most 70-year-olds will tell you, SEEING 70-year-olds and BEING one are two entirely different things.
“Look at that woman over there, she looks so old! I bet she’s at least 70!” I overheard a young woman snicker to her friend. I paused for a moment in righteous indignation for the woman they were talking about but looking at the rest of the people in the ticket line, I didn’t see a 70-year-old around anywhere. That’s when I realized they were talking about me! Now aside from their bad manners, there was the problem of me looking 70 years old without having accepted that fact.
I decided to own that moment, though. I stooped a little bit, hobbled over to where they were standing in line and said, “Pardon me, but would you two lovely young girls mind letting an old lady in ahead of you? It’s so hard to stand on my old legs!” They let me in the ticket line ahead of them and I refrained from skipping when I left, (I couldn’t have anyway) having purchased my tickets before them!
I had a friend ask me, “How does it feel, turning 70?” That was a hard question to answer, because the real answer is that it feels a lot like it did when I turned 30…only with more arthritic joints. My mind is still a happy-go-lucky ten-year-old, but the body says, “Reality check, lady!”
Over the years, I have frequently written about my birthday, and recently, I did a search back to see when I started. The first one I can find that is me, whining because I am getting older, is when I turned 35. Now, I have read that column many times before and every time I read about what a “bummer” it is to turn 35, I want to go back and slap that 35-year-old right in her bummer! (Yes, I actually used the word “bummer” to describe getting older!)
It occurs to me that aging goes through specific stages. For the first 19 years of my life, birthdays just meant a cake, pictures and presents. Birthdays were fun! And they never came around soon enough. This was to change…
Between 20 and about 35 (when it becomes a bummer) birthdays come around with great frequency, but I don’t think we pay as much attention to them. We are busy, establishing a career, taking mates and raising children if we wish and we accept the passing years with a great deal of passivity. It’s when we reach about 40, and we’re letting the children out the door and the dogs in, that we begin to think, “What is that twinge in my back and when did my knee start hurting in the weather?”
It’s between 40 and 50 that birthdays become less fun. Yes, we are celebrating that we have made it one more year, but we are also noticing that we don’t run as fast as we used to (or at all) and some of the signs on the road are written in awfully small print! But still, life is busy and pretty good.
By 60, we are starting to wonder how that birthday comes around so fast every year. People begin to wonder what to give us for presents, because we already have what we want and usually the cake has to be gluten, sugar, and fat free and I would just as soon let the candles burn it up, in that case.
And now, we have arrived at my 70th birthday. “We need to do something special, to celebrate your 70th,” my children told me. Please, at my age, getting out of bed without my back and three other joints going out is pretty special! My hair is thinner, but that’s okay, because it’s also going gray so no one will notice. My eyes keep needing bigger print and if you want me to hear you, an airhorn might get my attention!
Still, it really isn’t so bad achieving 70 years. I’m pleased with so many of my accomplishments and I still feel like I have some things to contribute. So, to my 35-year-old self: I would say that 70 birthdays have made me much more appreciative of life’s joys than I ever understood as a 35-year-old. Bummer for you, huh?
dropsinthewell 