60 and So On and So Forth

“If I met me now, I wouldn’t know me.” – Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

I turned 60 this year and stumbled over my attitude, which suddenly dwells incessantly on the what-ifs, the what-have-yous, the what-might-have-beens, and the what have I misseds.

I didn’t used to think like that. I used to consider the lilies and not worry about tomorrow. But 60?! Young Celeste thought 60 is old people. Perhaps she was right. A friend told me that no one notices you after 60. So, I got a tattoo on my birthday, because, by golly, I want a stranger to strike up a conversation with me in the checkout at the Winn Dixie.

Except we don’t have Winn Dixie anymore.

I was too busy in past years for a mid-life crisis, but I never knew when that would be anyway. My grandparents lived to 90s, and my daddy died at 43. (Watch Northern Exposure and the juxtaposition of Chris’s and Holling’s life expectancies. Chris’s crisis came in late 20s, because his people died in their 40s. Holling’s was at about 60, because his folks lived passed 100.)

I learned through the New York Times daily mini-crossword puzzle that David Bowie defined aging as “an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”

Hmm.

Of course, I used to be cuter, but I’ve always had circles under my eyes and a wrinkled brow. I’m not as funny as I was, and I whine more than I ever allowed my children. I spend too much time gazing around this magnificent and cruel world, noticing all the things I haven’t done. Won’t get to do. Ain’t gonna do.

I can’t build bridges or mend fences.

I don’t reap, because I didn’t sow. Or sew. Either or.

Hmm.

I come from a long line of coffee drinkers. When awakened by the aroma, I breathe deeply and smile. I enjoy brewing it for beloveds and fixing it to their specifications. I adore the attitude of coffee drinkers, who only get out of bed to drink coffee, who savor conversation about coffee, who couldn’t survive a day without coffee, whose eyebrows lift when a fellow devotee offers, “Coffee?” I awe how they wrap their hands around the mugs and blow the heat into their faces and find contentment, at least for a cupful. Without a doubt, I have the soul of a coffee drinker … but I don’t drink coffee. I don’t like the taste of it, and I don’t want my breath to smell like coffee drinkers’ breath. (Unintentionally, I raised three children to adulthood, who don’t drink it either. Once, a foreman told my son he was not a man if he didn’t drink coffee. Hmph. He proceeded to lift something heavy and pee in the woods.)

So many things, I am not. Most things, I cannot do.

I’m not an artist … but I ache at the masterpiece (especially from the 11^th floor balcony of my friend’s Panama City Beach condo, when she doesn’t have a renter and texts, “Wanna go?”). (Perhaps where I could be located when I started this list.)

I’m not a musician … but I’ve been lifted by acoustics and felt the beat in my pulse. I hear poetry in conversation and in silence and in rivers and in summer duets of crickets and bullfrogs.

I’m not an academic, and other than “Should a comma go here?” I don’t have many answers … but I’m not afraid of questions. The older I get, I recognize how little I am certain.

I’m not a voracious book reader anymore … but my daughters share their Audible account with me.

I don’t garden … but I grew three babies in my belly and have never taken that privilege for granted, not one single day.

I’m not an architect or an engineer, a plumber or an electrician … but I made a home.

I’m not an undertaker … but I have buried beloveds.

I’m not a historian … but I can tell a tale and binge PBS and encourage folks to write about their grandparents.

I’m not a mental health counselor … but you’re welcome to cry on my shoulder, and I won’t tell you that everything’s gonna be okay. I won’t tell you that time heals all wounds. I won’t tell you that you’re gonna be fine. I’ll just let you cry and scream, and I’ll hold your hand, if you want me to, until you find your footing. And I’ll assure you, like my therapist friend does me, that life is unfair and that you’re not a whiner.

I’m not a theologian … but I’ve been forgiven more than 70 x 7, and I’ve learned to forgive, too, and to genuinely appreciate openly broken over showy perfection.

I’m not a politician … but I read somewhere to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

I’m not an athlete … but I’ve run lots of races and fought lots of fights and cheered lots of teams.

I’m not a nurse … but I can take care of people.

I’m not a doctor or a lawyer … but I’ve saved a couple of cell numbers. 

I’m not a good cook, because I’m not an adventurous eater … but on Thanksgiving, I’ll fry up a mess of Mama Byrd’s cornbread like nobody’s business and confess a plethora of gratitude.

I can do that.

Pass the peas, please.