It Starts Tomorrow

ATTENTION HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1972:

Starting tomorrow, every single one of you (okay, us) will turn sixty. years.  old.

I need to take a moment.

Thank you.

The only birthday I've ever had that bothered me was when I turned twenty-one. I don't know why it bothered me, exactly.  I'd been  married two and a half years, had been in the workforce full time almost three years. But bother me it did.

I somehow have a feeling sixty is gonna bother me.

I mean, fifty-something is bad enough. But sixty?

Oh, I look in the mirror and see it. I ain't blind or stupid.

And God knows if I live ten more years I can laugh at sixty and shiver at seventy. (If I remember this blog, which I won't, probably not even by next week).

Out of our class, two women are deceased. And probably a dozen men.

We were one hundred and one strong in our graduating class.

I still keep in touch with a lot of them, one is my prayer partner.

My twenties were yesterday.

My forties are still here.

Oh, wait. No, they ain't. I just think I'm forty.

And even that's depressing.

Happy New Year.