Both my sister and my husband turned 70 a couple of weeks ago, both of them born on the same day in the same year. I’m two years older. And what always shocks me–besides the mirror–is that I still haven’t quite figured out what I want to “be when I grow up!”

How Do You Like Being Old?

This reminds me of a column of my father’s published in 2008. In it, he says he was sitting in a shopping center waiting for my mother when a little boy came by. After chatting for a bit, he said, “How do you like being an old man?” Dad said he was a bit embarrassed “being only 89 years old and two months from my 90th!” He said he hadn’t considered himself as “being in the clutches of Father Time.”

Don’t Tell Mom

Dad wrote, “The youngster seemed to comprehend that he might have placed me in a delicate position.” He quickly said, “Golly, mister, I made a boo-boo. Please don’t tell my mom I asked you that. If she tells my dad, I’ll be in deep stuff.” Dad told the youngster not to worry, and the child breathed an audible sigh of relief.

The Deer Incident

I also remember my mother telling me about an incident when she and my father were in their 70s and hit a deer on the interstate driving home one night. A highway patrolman came by and drove them to a truck stop where my mom heard them refer to “an elderly couple” who hit a deer. “No one has called us elderly before,” my mom said.

What Age Brings

What age can bring to many is horrible infirmity and pain. And while Dad spent the last year of his life in an Alzheimer’s care center before he died shortly before his 96th birthday, he lived a long and fulfilling life. He acknowledged that in the column mentioned above. “I have lived a long time, sufficiently long enough to appreciate the hair still on my head and to have happy lines in my face…” He expressed gratitude for those laugh lines and for the time he spent from his teen years forward working in the newspaper business.

And for Me?

I enjoyed a long career in the daily newspaper business. Then I spent 30 years in higher education as a journalism educator and college newspaper, yearbook, radio and television adviser. I still teach online classes for one university. And occasionally I have written columns for the local newspaper. I’ve been re-editing Dad’s three books for online and paperback publication and have at least one of them being prepared as an audiobook. I enjoy writing these blog posts. I’m active in community organizations as well. I’m grateful for my wonderful family and a few close friends.

But…

The BUT is I know I am not as robust as I once was. I have several medical conditions, none serious. I’m certainly wrinkled, and my skin is thinning. And I miss the daily contact I had on the job, as a reporter, as an editor, as an educator and as a college media adviser. Retirement was inevitable at some point. But overall I would say I’m not welcoming old age. My 99-year-old mother said she prays every night for death and has since my father died. She now lives in a nursing home because she is wheelchair bound and has light dementia.

And she’s on Medicaid because, while my parents felt they retired with plenty of money to see them through to the end, they simply outlived their life’s savings and investments. I have the same fears.

A Rich Twilight

I don’t think I’ve approached my elder years with the positive outlook my father did. I have to learn to live in the moment, enjoy my mom while I have her, cherish my wonderful daughter and grandson and appreciate the travel and other activities my husband and I enjoy. Regret at this stage in life might be somewhat inevitable. But joy is just waiting to be spotted in my six backyard chickens, my three dogs and a cat and the beautiful rose that burst into bloom on one of the bushes today, even the brand new sheets I just put on the bed!

70 the New 40?

I know there’s been some publicity this year that 70 is the new cool age. Not sure I totally believe that. I find myself feeling insulted just a tiny bit when the grocery checker asks if I need help getting to my car. Do they ask everyone? Whatever! I do know I can work on enriching my own twilight.