On Turning 72

I never really took birthdays to heart until this year. Thirty was just an age, the same with forty, and fifty. Okay when I hit sixty it was a bit, umm, shocking that I could be considered by some to be, *gasp*, ‘old’. I didn’t feel old then, or even at seventy.

And truth be told I still don’t feel old, although sometimes my body debates the fact. There’s the occasional ache in the knees when I stand up, the slightly blurry monitor screen if I’m not positioned just right. Going to bed at midnight, not one or two in the morning because I’m too tired to stay awake. Yeah that part of it, well, sucks.

But mentally and emotionally I’m still—humm, maybe forty, maybe younger or a bit older depending on the day and the mood. But I know one thing, I’m never growing up and growing old in my head and heart if I can help it.

Still this year seems a bit, I don’t know, different.

For one, I realized a couple of days ago that I was now just ten years younger than when my father died. He might have lived longer if it hadn’t been for complications from cancer and a bad heart. He was a good man, in fact in my eyes he was one of the best ever. He loved his family and adored my mother until the day he died. 

My mother adored him in return until the day she died at the age of ninety-two. Her last few years were spent in memories of her life with him and with us, even though she couldn’t remember two minutes later what someone had just said to her.

So yeah, as I creep up on them, age-wise, I’m beginning to realize I’m no more likely to be immortal than they were.

I’ve also become a bit of a Luddite. I don’t own a car and never have. I wouldn’t touch a cell phone with a ten-foot pole, as the saying goes. And I got rid of my TV when they switched everything to HDTV. I rarely watched the damned thing anyway. However—computers are another thing entirely. I’ve owned one since, hell, 1982 I think and would never give them up.

So yes, I am getting older and pretty much proud of it and of the legacies I’ll leave behind. 

First and foremost, my wonderful son who just a month ago, with his girlfriend, moved several states away to start a new life for himself. He had his ups and downs and did some things he regrets now. But he’s turned into a wonderful, caring man. I was about to say ‘young man’ but at thirty-one he’s inching away from the ‘young’ I suppose. Of course it’s all a matter of perspective. Hell, at thirty I was very young. Foot-loose and fancy free as they say, never staying in one place for more than three years at a time until I finally moved to Denver and settled down once and for all.

My other legacy is my books. I’m no Hemmingway or Faulkner and I know it, but I love writing and I definitely like the fact that people seem to want to read my stories and for the most part they enjoy them.

Okay, enough about me at the ripe young age of seventy-two. *chuckling* I have more stories to write and hopefully I always will, even when I reach ninety or one hundred. Hell, I figure if my mom made it to ninety-three who am I to break the tradition. Maybe I really will hit one hundred and still be pumping out my books. I can only hope.

For now, goodbye. And tell your kids to look for my stories in thirty years and counting. *grinning broadly now* Who knows, it could happen.