A Soon-To-Be Six-Oh-Dear! Inductee Writes

A California Girl, and a soon to-be-member of the Six-Oh-Dear Club, sent me the following e-mail. This woman, is an inspiration, and imagining her as one who has left her fifties behind, it unimaginable.

Charmaine.... I have six (count them.........6) more days to be that youthful age of "in my 50s."

I'm not a real birthday party kinda girl but a couple of weeks ago I thought What the Hell!!!????!!! I'm not taking this lying down!!!! No way...I'll show them (Them??Who's that?)

I had just put in a CD that my brother had made for me and as dorky as it seems, the sound track to the movie "Forest Gump" really rocked big time!
All those great sixties, seventies and eighties rock 'n roll tunes inspired me .I made a plan: PAAAAAAAAAARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've invited a dozen or so friends and neighbors over on Saturday to back me up on my message ...Hell no, we won't take it!!!! I even told them all that I didn't want to have to cook for anyone and could it please be a pot luck. How's that?


Truth be told, I (like others, I'm sure) am fairly OK with this birthday. I mean, it's just another day. I just don't like the sound of that horrible word,"sixty". So I will either not ever use it out loud or I will totally embrace it (oh yeah). I am just going to go on as usual doing what I do in life. And no youngster better call me their "elder" as has happened in the past.


The good news, if there is any, is that I already had store clerks ask me ages ago if I wanted the senior discount! The first time that happened, my friend Julia Butterfly, "Of course she doesn't!" I've loved her ever since.


Another good bit of advice I've gotten lately was a friend who said, "Just look at it as a success."

How simple, why didn't I think of that ?
I'm hoping that the angst of arriving to this upcoming day is just that---the Arrival! And that once I'm past that day, everything will go back to normal. Please, tell me that it will.
So, my friend......I am ready for your words of wisdom.


So what say the Santa Fe Mother Blogger? Party on, Garth! The good news is that you get to do this just once. We'll be the last generation to collect our Social Security in a few years; and you can cancel a non-refundable, discounted flight on some airlines and not be penalized (which is good for you, oh traveling one). You can climb one of those mountains that require oxygen, and really laugh at the youngsters wheezing and trailing behind you. Now you have bragging rights. If your figure goes a bit south, you can blame it on age, not the extra scoop of ice cream. You don't havta take crapola from any one any more because you ARE the elder. You can reverse-mortgage your house in a few years. And now if you want to take a mid-day nap, you can. Now you can have fun shocking the heck out of folks you can't believe that you are in the Six-Oh-Dear! Club.

My birthday passed like the 59 before it. I felt better the day after realizing that I now have advantages I had not had prior. Party on, girlfriend!