70

2/27/22  2:13pm

I've been on this planet for 70 years and 12 hours.  It really doesn't feel that long at all... except when it feels like forever.

I was born in the middle of the 20th century People born 100 years before me were teenagers during the Civil War.  That seemed like ancient history until very recently.  Since I've been considering the passage of time, decades compress and expand as I watch from the sidelines, bemused.

Where did my 30's go?  I know there was more than diapers and play group, but I'm hard pressed to come up with an outfit (beyond maternity clothes - those I remember quite well) I loved or an event (beyond a few memorable Grateful Dead concerts) I attended.  

My teens come back to me with the flick of a brain cell.  I remember how it felt and sounded as I opened my locker in the morning.  I close my eyes and I'm sitting in homeroom with all the other A's and a few B's, lucky enough to be in Mr. Jan's room (the basketball coach and the coolest teacher on campus) as he demonstrated acceptable adult behavior.  I didn't want to marry him (his daughter is my sister's best friend) - I wanted a husband just like him.

I went down the rabbit hole with that memory.  I could do the same with the trips to The City FAMBB and I took - Gone With The Wind on a really really big screen, riding the train - or being in gym class, or being the Delegate from Delaware in Problems in American Democracy's Constitutional Convention.  It all appears with hardly any effort on my part.  

It feels like yesterday.

40's, 50's, 60's.... adulthood doesn't feel like thirty years of sunrises and sunsets.  

I've been thinking back to my parents at 70, when The Cuters were little.  Did they sit on the floor to play?  I can't remember.  I know they were competent caregivers; we left the kids with them quite often.  There were no signs of memory loss or rapid physical deterioration, at least that I can recall.  Among the things I wished I'd asked them comes a new question - what does it feel like to be old.

Daddooooo's response would be, I'm sure It beats the alternative and G'ma would chime in with Are you sure?  No one's come back to tell us after all.  

That's not very helpful right now, as I'm wondering if I'm going to feel this old tomorrow.  70 is a big number, and I'm feeling its weight.  I've been closer to the end than the beginning of my life for a while now, yet this year the scale feels more heavily tipped.

I imagine myself as 25.  I'm peeved at my hip because it puts the lie to that fact; had I not been perforated I'm sure I'd be running every bit as fast as Giblet, and for just as long.  I don't keep up with today's music or movies or comics, but that's because my music and movies and comics are better.  TBG and I look with wonder as the SNL audience laughs its head off.  The jokes elude us and that's okay.  

I'm old.  I'm here to say it.  

I've had eleven bonus years, years I stole back from the other side, and I hope that I've made the most of (at least) those few.  

I plug in my ears and pop in my eyes and wrap my bursitis elbow and down pills for blood pressure and cholesterol every morning  - and I laugh at all it takes to put me together for the day.  But the sun came up this morning and I was here to see it.  By definition, then, it's a good day.

Happy Birthday to me!