Jumping into what you know is a
downward trip
Anyone who makes it to 60 has made it through many potentially fatal situations. That doesn't make the transition to elderhood easier.
As soon as my mother turned 75, she started telling people she was nearly 80.
It upset me. I would tell her to stop pushing the clock. She would get there soon enough, and I didn't want her nudging, even hypothetically, any closer to dying.
So she would have laughed to hear me over the last few years telling people I was nearly 60.
When my mother rounded up, I assumed it was because she thought older women received more respect. Or at least discounts.
Now I realize that wasn't her primary motivation. She was just being brave. Recognizing that her time was running out, and unflinching in the face of a challenge, she went on the offensive. The end is near? Fine. She accelerated (psychologically) toward the finish line.
I am like my mother in many ways. But my own motives for prematurely claiming 60 had more to do with fear than proaction.
Nervous about crossing the border into old age, I was giving myself a test run. Which is a little like getting ready for major surgery by giving yourself paper cuts.
Nothing dramatic happened in June when I really did reach the same ripe, relatively old age as Cyndi Lauper, Hulk Hogan, Sharon Osbourne, and Son of Sam.
The day after, I was no more addled or rickety. But once you are definitively on the downside of the hill, your perspective changes.
Something about that number. It's so . . . large. Only four away from "will you still need me, will you still feed me?" Only barely enough time to outlive a cat.
The Social Security Administration publishes an actuarial table that predicts how many more years you can expect to look forward to, starting from birth (when you have a whopping 80.81 to go) until age 119 (when, incredibly, the statisticians give you an additional 0.61).
Last year, at 59, according to their calculations, I had 25 years and three months before my expiration date.
Now, I am down to 24 years and four months.
The odds, in other words, are ever less in my favor.
All life is a gamble, of course. Anyone who makes it to 60 has escaped a hoary parade of potentially fatal situations.
Suffocating in the crib as an infant. Getting hit by a school bus in second grade. Succumbing to leukemia in junior high school.
I could have cracked open my skull barreling down hills on a bike trip through North Carolina in the 1970s, before anyone wore helmets. Or hemorrhaged to death giving birth.
At 33, I might have drowned in the Hudson River when a semi clipped my Honda Civic midspan on the George Washington Bridge. (The guard rail held.) I've lost count of the near-misses on the New Jersey Turnpike. And then, when I was 37, there was the wardrobe malfunction at a la-di-da restaurant when I nearly died of embarrassment.
The maitre d' came to our table. "You have a phone call," he said. (It was the pre-cellphone era.) He then escorted me to a discreet, shadowy vestibule and informed me that my wraparound dress had, ahem, madam, disengaged. In the interest of self-preservation, I convinced myself he was the only one who had noticed.
Having survived the obstacle course thus far, however, offers no guarantees that my generally good luck will hold. And I have pressed it. A few weeks ago, I went paragliding, which involved jumping off a mountain while desperately clutching the strings to a kite - and the total stranger I was trusting to float me back safely to the ground.
Even more reckless, I still drive a car - a death-defying stunt that killed 34,000 people last year. I also eat raw spinach, tempting the E. coli gods to strike me down.
In most other respects, I am trying to behave responsibly. For now, I seem to be holding up fairly well, and my husband is, too.
Neither one of us has blown any critical gaskets. No organs have failed. No parts need replacing. We have ourselves appropriately scoped and prodded. And all our drug use is legal, necessary, and no fun.
We both know, however, that there is only so much a body can do to fend off the inevitable. So now, more than ever, we are hedging our bets. Trying to enjoy the now in case there's not much now left. But not quitting too early or cashing out should we end up lasting another 30 years, bored and broke.
Our youngest child, entering her last year of college, is wondering what to do with the rest of her life. Like her, a rising senior, I wonder the same.
A few of our friends who retired early are traveling, taking courses, volunteering, or babysitting the grandchildren. But some of the happiest old people we know kept working until they were well into their 80s.
As much as I love my job -.
No.
I am not at all ready to quit work or my mortal coil. Nevertheless, the idea that the end is nearer, if not near, has been creeping into all kinds of conversations. And for my children, creeping is the operative word.
Last week, for instance, a contractor laying out our options for a new roof suggested we go for one that lasted a lifetime instead of only 20 years.
"At this point," I laughed, "20 years is a lifetime."
"Don't say that," my older daughter groaned.
"It's true," I said, although I understood. It upset her because she doesn't want to think, even hypothetically, about me dying.
There is something to be said for this keener awareness that the party won't go on forever. It helps you appreciate the time you have left. A few years ago, when a friend of mine was dying of cancer, she said she longed to sit at the edge of a lake, reading a book, dipping her feet in the water.
That is an aspiration worth acting upon.
Like my mother, I want to face the future unflinching. But the more I think about getting old, the more I realize it's the present that really matters.
After all, my mother never made it to 80. She never got to be as old as she imagined herself.
The anticipation is much worse than the reality. So this year, I think I'll just enjoy being 60.
That's plenty for now.
E-mail Melissa Dribben at mdribben@phillynews.com.
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