Tomorrow, I turn 60. I’ve been saying I’m older than I am for years. I never understood why women lie about their age the other direction. If you are 55 and you look 45, and you say you’re 60, well that’s a bigger win in my mind.
I’m lucky (and unlucky) to have hit menopause way late (58). It’s saved my face and reality is that I haven’t had anyone guess my age in years. But the jaw line is softening now, and this neck business is very unfortunate. I’m on a dramatic weight loss journey which will likely make the people around me think that I’m somehow less likely to drop dead of a heart attack, but as they say – face or ass. At sixty, you typically get one or the other, not both.
I expect my birthday will be rather anticlimactic compared to the year I’ve just endured. Some of the happenings I can disclose right now, others will have to wait a month or two. Suffice it to say that there’s been COVID. And a wild ride for my business. And a near decomposition of my 30+ year marriage. I do gym time now, and therapy, and I keep trying meditation but apparently I have the meditation attention span of a gnat. Like everything else, you’ve got to decide to do, or do not – there is no try. Except the meditation gurus say trying is ok. Let’s acknowledge we live in a world of mixed messages and move on.
My birth day/month is easy to remember – 411 – like what we used before the internet for phone numbers and such. Dial 411 and you’d get a chirpy Operator who would announe “Directory Assistance!” and look up your number. She (invariably a she) would even dial it for you – but sometimes that cost extra. We also had phone numbers to tell us exactly what the time was. I think it was 844-1212. This time you’d get an automated message wishing you a pleasant morning/evening and saying something like, “At the tone, the time will be 9:27 and 30 seconds. A tone would resonate every 10 seconds with an updated time until the machine figured you were lost in your own thoughts and disconnected you. And yes, Virginia, there was a real Operator. Not sure if they are around anymore.
Well, tagging this Now and Then and Facts to keep it simple.
Tomorrow’s the big day.