Older and Bolder

Went to a surprise party last night for a friend turning fifty. As I am six weeks from sixty, I was marveling at her youth, at the wealth of time ahead of her.

A few years ago, when husband Bob turned sixty, my mother, then eighty, said, "You tell him I've had twenty good years after sixty so far. I love the "so far." Now she's eighty-six and still a party animal.

I'm trying to figure out what to make of aging. For a while, it was just dry skin. Then it became really dry skin, etc. Emphasis on etcetera. But the age of sixty has connotations.

It gives me the impulses to speed up and to slow down. I think I probably alternate.

Maybe it's possible to age without a strategy, just by keeping on pedaling as usual and noting what does or does not change.

This morning I was considering the awfully expensive skin cream Stryvectin. I've already decided to celebrate by taking a one-month sublet in Manhattan next October, which will likely also be good for business. (New York has always been my Plan B life, so I'm going to fit a collapsed version into one month.) I may have other lives I need to fit in soon. Interesting to think about. Aging both stirs and requires an extra dollop of boldness.

(I googled "turning sixty" and turned up 352,000 sites. Many highly verbal people have thoughts on their experience at this moment. Here's another writer's..)



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