You Only Turn Eighty Once
You Only Turn Eighty Once.
I’ll be eighty years old on Saturday. The number one comment is you look good for your age. I’d love to say, compared to what?
Thought I’d take this opportunity to share a few thoughts about turning eighty. First and foremost, I avoid reading the obituaries. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out most of the people who died that day, are younger than me.
I still think the same way I did when I was about thirty, then I catch a look in the mirror and this old lady is looking back at me. It still makes me shake my head in disbelief.
And we have a built in ego that says, I’m the same age as she is and I’m glad I don’t look as old as she does. I’ll let you in on a little secret, whoever you are talking to is thinking the exact thing about you.
Another thing I avoid at all costs is saying this is the last, such as this is the last couch I’ll ever have to buy, or the last car, or my last trip. If something is my last, it can be a surprise.
It is bad enough we are programed to age as society dictates. Go to kindergarten at five, first grade at six, get your driver’s license at sixteen, drink legally at eighteen or twenty-one, retire at sixty-five and they even give us a life expectancy.
They go so far as to send me advertisements saying, in your last years of life…
When you are younger, up until sixty , in most states, you renew your driver’s license every five years, at sixty it drops to three years and at age eighty, it drops to two years. I got mine two months early this year so I could still get three years.
The senior moment. I once bought a package of cough drops and hid it from my kids because they ate them like candy. I never found them again. If I did that today, it would be a senior moment. When I did it, around age thirty-five, I just had a lot on my mind
I could go on but you get my drift. Act Your Age is a good saying but since I have never been this age before, I don’t know what the proper decorum is.
How about ease into retirement? Most of us, I hope most of you also, figure out in short order, we don’t know how we ever found time to work.
People say, but you write books for a living, it keeps your mind sharp. I write books because I am obsessed with it. But it is a misnomer I am actually making a living with it. Some months are good and some aren’t. If is much like gambling, sometimes I have a winning hand other times the house wins.
I have to bring up the biggest downside I know about growing older, losing my friends and family. With the loss of my Brother and Sister, Mom and Dad, I am the last person in my generation.
To bring this all to an ending, let me say, don’t live by what society dictates, If you want and can afford a new corvette, buy one. Don’t ever say I am too old to do that.
Cherish your friends, love your fellow man and follow your heart. Smile at the people you see, you might be the only friendly face they saw today.
I hope to be here for years to come, so long as I feel good and am able to enjoy life. If something happens to me before that, I’ll see you all on the flip side.
