by Mary Wakefield Buxton –
URBANNA —
This young lady I know turned 80 last Sunday.
Sigh. Me.
I never thought it would happen. How could I ever grow old? I’m just a teenie-bopper caught in the body of an old lady, a laugher, finding humor everywhere I look and a believer that definition of comedy is … “If it moves….it’s funny!”
In other words, a salt shaker on the table isn’t funny but someone trying to get salt out of a shaker clogged with moisture can be very funny.
Alice, my sister, tells me I’m now “officially old.” Warning to readers everywhere. It could happen to you, too, and … it will happen before you know it!
I didn’t think much about growing old until maybe in my 50s or 60s when I saw that it really was happening to me; yes, the mirror doesn’t lie, slowly and surely I was aging.
But then I was safely immersed in what I called the “middle age zone.” And yes, I considered “middle age” to be 50s-70s, no matter what the experts say.
But then I hit 70. Wow! How could I possibly be 70 years old? I well remember staring at a smiling lady in the mirror who still had not a shred of white hair and thinking, I must still be young! I thought maybe God had forgotten about me and was going to let me skip old age and turning gray?
But when I turned 75, Alice announced that I had hit the “Young-Old” stage. I liked the former word well enough but didn’t much like the sound of the latter.
But then 80, no more tiptoeing about the bush, folks, “80 is ‘Old,’ period!” Alice announced. But then she made me feel better. “80,” she explained is just “Old.” When one hits 90 we are “Old-Old.” I don’t know where Alice gets all this information, but since she is 2 years older than I am, I feel I have to heed what she has to say.
If 90 is “Old-Old,” I wonder what Alice will say when we hit 100?
Still, there are some good things about hitting “Old.” I realized with age comes wisdom! That sounded good! Think how wise I must be now that I am 80! That cheered me up … until I thought of one other thing. Who wants to be wise, anyway? Wouldn’t we all rather be young and foolish?
Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh well. So here goes my “Old” stage in life.
As far as I can see, I’m not changing much. I still ride my bike to town and back, still walk “Dandy” every day to the church and back (Methodist church, that is, the Baptist church is too far away from Kent Street for a little old lady.)
I still jump right in the cold pool at Urbanna Harbour and laugh at husband, Chip, who comes into the freezing water inch by inch. I haven’t dropped dead yet.
I still eat what I want although not nearly as much as before. Remember the days we could eat half a pizza tossed down with a few glasses of wine? Those days are over. Now I’m lucky to consume one piece of pizza and a glass of wine.
There are good things about aging. I don’t take myself so seriously. Most problems seem like molehills that once upon a time seemed like the Alps. And I don’t fret so much, after all, in all the passing years one thing I really learned is how precious life is and how very fortunate any of us are, in spite of troubles, simply that we are alive.
To hear the birds in the morning, feed the stray cats on Kent Street, hug a dear dog, fix a meal for someone we love, take walks in such a lovely town as Urbanna, speak to wonderful neighbors, know our children and grandchildren are doing well and the list goes on and on.
That’s what makes old age good. We have learned to count blessings rather than be caught up in what we don’t have, or what makes us angry, or what irritating thing happened at work, or what we read on Facebook. (I never was on Facebook in the first place so that, in itself, spared me a lot of abject misery.)
People call me “ma’am,” hold doors for me, get up to give me a seat and look at me with affection, perhaps like they suddenly see their grandmother. They’re kind to me. I like that. I like that very much.
So I don’t think “Old” is so bad. But … I do have one nagging concern. Not sure about how I will feel when Alice tells me I’m “Old-Old!”
© 2021.
