Happy birthday to me! When did birthdays stop being fun? Pretty early on it seems. A lot of angst expressed at 30,40, and 50, but them silence ensues, as the rest of us hope that if we don’t talk about them, they will go away. This stops, of course, when we finally admit that we are “old.”
In the past, birthdays were fun, and life was filled with endless possibilities, but at 70 or 80 things started to change. Major milestones have come and gone, and we are left wondering what is left.
Birthdays are more than milestones. They signify the never-ending struggle to find meaning in our lives. It’s a great deal to take in, at a time when we thought we had already “been there and done all that.”
Once we get past the horror of grey hair, wrinkles, and career ceilings, we can focus on what really matters, but first we have to figure out what that is.
Culturally driven, we tend to think “young,” until we can’t. Alas, we are now at the “can’t” stage. Once you stare 70 or (gasp) 80 in the face, everything else is moot. You can remain young in spirit, but in all other respects, you have to acknowledge that “forever young” was just a movie title.
The one thing that cannot be denied is the continually ticking clock. On the inside you are still the same person, but, on the outside, not so much. Your expectations remain the same, but your body begs to differ. If you can see fit to accept that, and adapt, you can move on.
Yes, there are wrinkles, grey hair, medications and potentially new body parts, but lucky for us, science and technology are on our side. A birthday is, after all, just a number. It is better to be a septuagenarian or even an octogenarian now than ever before.
Is that enough? It has to be. If we are terrified by thoughts of another birthday, and of feeling older, we have to reset. It is time to focus on the here and now, and consider ourselves lucky to still be here. We are blessed.