Dear Reader,
“I’m getting old.”
I’ve been saying that more lately and whenever I announce it someone is always quick to reply, “Oh, Suzanne, you’re not getting old.” But I am. I’ll be 69 in two months. My plan was to grow old gracefully. To be one of those ladies, who may moan and groan a little bit when she bends down to pick up something off the floor, but she’s still “cool.” Do people even use that word anymore? Maybe only old people do?
If you’re over 47, I suggest that you ‘not’ Google, “What age are you when you start feeling old?” Because if I believe everything I read on the internet, then I’ve been on the old person slide for 22 years.
That old feeling crept in again the other day when I realized that I read the obits in the local paper every single day. It’s become a habit. Some of them are very well written, interesting little stories, but I’m scanning them looking for the deceased’s age and what disease got them in the end.
This feeling old thing is tricky. Thoughts of getting old enter my mind off and on for no particular reason, like the other night, when my husband and I were getting ready for bed, I casually asked him, “Oh, by the way, I was thinking today, “Do you want to be cremated or do you want ‘the works’ a viewing and a formal funeral with a casket and a headstone?”
When I was having blood drawn the other day, after the tech wrapped a tight band around my arm, as he was tap, tap, taping looking for a place to stick the needle in, he stopped, “Whoa, your skin is really thin. I’m going to have to use a smaller needle.” And as he was checking my medical chart, he added, “Wow, you don’t look that old!”
Maybe age is “just” a number? Maybe I really am still “cool.”
Thanks for reading with me. It’s so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
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This month's Penguin Classic is The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe, Introduction by Rachel Syme. Start Reading and enter for your chance to win a copy of your own.
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