It’s Only a Number

Almost forty years ago, my dad was killed in a multi-car accident on I-94 near Kalamazoo. At the time, I was a 22 year old college student, living in an apartment in Traverse City with my brother. Our kindly – and elderly – neighbor who lived across the hall expressed her condolences and asked how old he was. He was 61. “Oh, goodness,” she said. “So young.”

That exchange has stuck with me over the years. It was certainly a heartbreaking tragedy for our family, but I never thought to myself, gosh, he was so young. He was my dad – and an older dad at that. When I was 10 years old and all my friend’s moms and dads were in their early 30s, my dad was already 40 – and that seemed “old.”

Throughout my high school years and as I went off to college, I made other “old” observations. He was sometimes slow in standing up from a chair and his knees would creak and pop. He took medication in the morning, including pills for arthritis in his hands. When he sat on the ground to garden, if someone else was in the vicinity, he would ask for a hand up to get back onto his feet. He and my mom began to talk about… retirement. Retirement?! I wasn’t even off the parental dole yet.

Back to the here and now, I’ll be having a birthday this week. I am going to be sixty-two years old. 62 years old. I am going to be OLDER than my dad. Obviously, this is not a big surprise. I’ve seen it coming for some time – it’s been there on the horizon and moving closer as I’ve watched each of my four siblings reach, and pass, that milestone. Not surprising, but it is surreal. The five of us are all older than my dad.

Technically, I am already older than my dad by 100 days. And I’m married to a man that is older than my dad! MOH is also having a birthday this week, AND he retired this past month. You know what else? We both take medications in the morning. Sometimes I’m slow in standing up and my knees occasionally creak or pop. I think about my own retirement, an event I can remember not being able to imagine. Now, I think about it just about every day – especially when I’m driving to work on snowy slippery roads while MOH is still slumbering in bed.

‘They’ say – you’re only as old as you feel. I cycle through feeling like – I’m still young and on top of my game.  Other times, I think the best of my days are behind me and my life is nearing its end.

Music makes me feel young. I’m still a cool kid as long as I’m still listening to cool music, right? Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, Queen, Fleetwood Mac are timeless and will forever be cool. Younger generations agree, and even if they didn’t, it would still be true. But I have a broad listening genre and, I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty geeked when Spotify Wrapped categorized my listening age as 22.

As a side note – it’s still okay to use the expression “geeked”. I checked with AI which told me… Using the term “geeked” to mean extremely excited, enthusiastic, or happy does not necessarily age you, as it is a widely understood slang term that has seen resurgence in Gen Z and modern social media slang. While it was popular in earlier decades, it remains a current, relevant term to express high energy or intense interest in a topic.

I’m probably too self-conscious about trying to use current (and not use dated) expressions. I remember one of our company’s owners (now retired) talking about trying to stay hip, and one of my colleagues telling him, “Well, first off, you have to quit saying hip.”

I admit that I’m working on using only one space between sentences. I try very hard not to ask for tech help and most of the time, although it takes me a while to figure it out, I don’t have to. My son might disagree with that statement. I still regularly sit on the floor and usually wave off a hand-up, although I look absolutely ridiculous getting up on my own. I don’t mind letting MOH carry my case of water in from the car. I can still do that myself, and when I do, I feel like a tough gal.

Regardless of all of that, I’ve been in a bit of a funk since I turned 60. Forty was not a problem. Fifty, didn’t worry me at all. Sixty was, and has been rough. Sixty hit the same month our elderly dog passed away, and “we” decided we wouldn’t have any more dogs. I spend a lot of time, without a doubt too much time, thinking about how many years I have left. I wonder if it’s because of this thing with my dad and if it will pass when I’m “over the hump.” I guess I’m just hyper-aware of how family gatherings, good health, and beautiful sunny days are not promised. Some of that could be the dreary winter weather talking.

I had lunch with two high school classmates yesterday. When you’re from a small town like me and you say high school classmates, what you really mean is lifelong friends. These are women that I’ve known since elementary school. Our first topic of conversation was retirement and retired spouses. We have a lot of similar experiences – but differences too. It made me realize that besides the time I spend with MOH, most of my time is spent with people older or younger than myself. My doom and gloom wasn’t on full display, so maybe they have some feelings similar to mine, but I really didn’t get the vibe that either of them is looking at life and thinking about what they need to wrap up before they die – which is where I am sometimes. That was uplifting and I walked away in a better mood for our visit. Generally, I consider myself a glass half -full kind of person, so maybe I just need to pull myself up by my bootstraps.  (Note to self- don’t use that expression at work.)

I’m sad that our family didn’t have our dad in our lives longer, but I usually don’t dwell on it. I choose to focus on what a wonderful person he was and the many life lessons he shared with us. I am thankful for every single day that I have left – whether that is one or eight thousand and thirty. I, we, all of us need to be happy in the moment – to be with family, to experience love and kindness and wonder, and to stop and smell the flowers.

Maybe I’ll put on some Pat Benatar music and get myself a dog.