Five Lies I’m Telling Myself on My 66th Birthday

My 15th birthday

It’s become a tradition that I write a blog every year for my birthday. Tradition also dictates that I use the same picture, the one from my fifteenth birthday party. As the years fly by, the memory of that birthday is fading as rapidly as the picture itself. Am I the same person inside, despite the fifty-one years that have gone by, or is that one of the lies we like to tell ourselves?

I’m not feeling as optimistic as I was on my Medicare birthday last year and not as ready to break out singing to the Beatles as I did for my 64^th birthday celebration. Turning sixty-six has me feeling a little melancholy and nostalgic at the same time. Mix that in with a bit of worry for the future and a tentative excitement for the years ahead, and what you have left is an emotionally confused birthday girl. Here are the stories I like to tell myself about aging, lies I want to believe.

1. Age is only a number.

That’s partially true, but with the ascending number come some truths. There are exceptions, as some people seem to have made a pact with an underworld entity that allows them to escape these worldly flaws. I’m not one of them. Some days, I feel great, like I’m a young thing in my 50s and other days, I feel and look every day of my sixty-six years.

Statistics dictate that you’re more likely to have a joint replaced as you age. The risk of dementia doubles every five years from the ages of 65 to 90. Advanced age is also the number-one factor for a majority of cancers. Age is not just a number. It’s a reality that as we age, we’re prone to increased health issues. However, we can choose lifestyles (that pesky diet and exercise thing) that increase our odds of a better quality of life as we age. I know what I should be doing to age healthier, but that doesn’t mean I always do it.

2. Grow old along with me; the best is yet to be.

Robert Browning penned these hopeful words, probably with his love, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in mind. It sounds romantic, but I’m not sure Browning had some of the indignities of aging in mind when he wrote it. I doubt the poet was thinking about the times I’ve asked my husband to look at a new weird bump or rash or how our exchanged words of love often include a list of our daily aches and pains.

One time, I had the flu so severely that I threw up on my husband’s head and then passed out. I doubt Browning was picturing anything like that when he said the best is yet to be. I don’t think my husband is getting the best of me at this point, but at least we’re doing it together. We had our first date when I was 18, so I’m also hoping he remembers that young version of me!

3. You’re always the same age inside.

The curmudgeonly old lady inside me, the one who is yelling at kids to get off my lawn, is laughing at this statement. Instead of chasing the kids off my lawn, I frequently chase that cranky old lady out of my head. When Toby Keith questioned 88-year-old Clint Eastwood about his surprising energy, Eastwood said, “I don’t let the old man (or woman) in!”

I’ve had friends who succumbed to being elderly when they were in their 50s. It wasn’t because of health issues but more of a mental surrender. I’ve also known people who are more like Clint Eastwood and fight to keep the old person out. It does become more of a challenge as I age. It would be easier to wave the white flag and sit and knit, but that’s not how I want to live for the next twenty or thirty years, so I keep trying to follow Clint’s advice.

4. You are not too old, and it is not too late.

I’m so guilty of believing this lie that I’ve even been known to use it as my Facebook profile photo. I want to believe it, but as the creaks and pains settle into my body, and my brain can’t hold onto what I had for breakfast, let alone any critical details, I find it less plausible. As the time left ahead becomes significantly less than the time I’ve lived, I have had to face the reality that some of the things I thought I’d do probably aren’t going to happen. I can still set goals and achieve them, but reality has intruded into some of my plans.

We do have limitations as we age. Whether they are physical or financial, most of us have some restrictions. Then there are those people we see who are running marathons at the age of 100 or getting their doctorates in their 90s. I just detest those showoffs who make the rest of us mere mortals look bad.

5. Live your life with no regrets.

There are a few options for living your life with no regrets. You can be a psychopath and not care about the times you’ve hurt someone’s feelings, left the grocery cart loose in the parking lot, or cheated on your tax returns. You can have a terrible memory and (conveniently) not remember your mistakes. Another option is to become a person who obliviously drifts through life with no big plans or goals and lives an unexamined life.

I sometimes envy those carefree people, but I can’t seem to emulate them. I have regrets and plenty of them. They range from being unnecessarily mean to a boy when we were twelve to not getting a doctorate. I regret not helping my mom more on the holidays and not getting my dad to teach me how to make his famous salsa. I regret that time I yelled at my sweet little girls when I was angry at their dad, not them. You get the idea.

If I were to be honest and thorough, my list of small and big regrets could fill a few pages. Maybe we shouldn’t go there. I can’t go back in time and fix all my past mistakes, and I don’t want to return to school to work on my PhD. However, I can ensure I let people in my life know, through words and actions, that they are loved and appreciated. I can make peace with my regrets as long as I leave no words of love unsaid.

As I hurtle full speed ahead toward my 67^th birthday (only 362 more days!), I’m going to do my best to continue to believe some of the lies I tell myself about aging. I usually believe in honesty and transparency, but sometimes, denial can be beneficial. I’m adopting Clint Eastwood’s words as my mantra for this year of life.  I will fight like heck not to let the old woman in!