2002-07-17 - 10:08 a.m.

GETTING OLD

Trinity63 just pointed out that she was born...the year I finished college. If I were worried about getting old, I think that would clinch it. However, my perspective is different.

When I was a child, I figured out that I would be sixty if I lived to see the twenty-first century. (Of course, to a child, that seemed ancient.) I remember being far more excited about 1949 turning into 1950.

There are almost as many sayings about getting older as there are old people, but none is truer than that it is just a matter of perspective. Probably the only time I have really been self-conscious about my age is when I was noticeably older or younger than people around me. Kids know that; someone is always saying, �you�re too little.� And that�s why they say, �when I get big��

That particular problem, of course, is one you outgrow. Once I passed my twenty-first birthday, there was no problem. I still looked younger, but I carried proof of majority.

My worst birthday ever was my thirtieth. You must understand that, until I was twenty-eight, I looked so young that I was still being �carded� whenever I ordered a drink. In two years I had gotten married and had a baby. I was too busy with my daughter to worry about my appearance, and I was fifteen pounds underweight (I�d love to see that again). On the day I turned thirty, the mirror showed me a pale (no makeup), gaunt (from the weight loss) woman with long straight hair (no time for curlers) in a cheap housedress, who looked thirty years old. I felt that I had aged ten years in two.

The feeling didn�t last, of course, and I had no problems with subsequent milestones. By the time I was forty, my kids were in school and I was back in the work force. I regained the vitality I had lost, and I never had a �bad� birthday again. But my perspective grew from another direction too.

When my children started school, I felt a little �old� among the mothers of the other children, most of whom evidently had married directly out of high school. (I, on the other hand, had been to college and business school and had spent some time �out in the world.�) Age was not a subject of conversation among us, but when my little girl asked how old I was, I realized that she would tell the world. So I said I was a hundred ten � and forgot about it.

When the phone rang on my next birthday, I knew it was my mother so I let my three-year-old answer. �Hello, Grandma. It�s Mommy�s birthday,� she said. Grandma must have asked, �how old is your mommy?� because her careful answer was �one hundred and eleven�! Who would have thought a little kid would remember that!

This continued for years, until I was about a �hundred and twenty.� It worked out very well. My little boy tried to catch me once. He asked me what year I was born, and I told him 1864. He then subtracted 1864 from 1979, and said �a hundred fifteen, that�s right.�

The kids asked me questions about the Depression or the World Wars, and I answered with the accounts my father had told me. It�s a great way to teach history. After all, I �remembered� all kinds of historical events. I told them about Charles Lindbergh flying across the Atlantic and the big parade in New York when he came home. �Do you remember President Lincoln, Mommy?� �No, honey, I was only a baby when he died.�

I told them about silent movies and listening to the radio, about walking or riding in carriages before there were cars. My father was a champion explainer.

My oldest daughter, the blabbermouth, let the cat out the bag not long afterwards, though the younger kids didn�t find out right away. She was doing a school report about donating blood and accompanied me through a blood drive. She watched the registrar filling in my vital statistics and announced to the whole room, �Oh, you�re forty!�

I knew I was right in not telling her my age years earlier. She�s the same one who organized a surprise party for my fiftieth birthday.

There was one November that I remember calling �the month that I got old.� In the course of that one month, my wonderful boss was transferred, my daughter totaled my car, and my bank went out of business. Difficult, yes, but I survived.

As I approached my sixtieth, my younger siblings and my kids were rather astounded about it, but the only person who called me old was my husband, who is now stunned to realize he will be seventy-five next birthday.

Certainly I�m not thrilled by a body that doesn�t work as well as it used to. I can�t eat all the things I�d like, driving at night is difficult, and I�ve discovered some new aches and pains. On the other hand, I�m not in a wheelchair yet.

I�m annoyed that I seemed to be considered too old to hire, even when I was too young for Social Security. But how self-conscious could I be about turning sixty? After all, I�ve already been twice that old.

You will certainly be hearing more on this subject!

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