OK, this is a rant. I am sick of hearing people say that 70 is the new 40. That's nonsense. I'm also sick of people saying, "Oh, he died too young," when someone passes at 70, or thereabouts. I'm hearing that a lot, concerning William Hurt, who just died at 71. The way I see it, humans have certain roughly defined stages of life that we all pass through. Our child years are birth to, about, twelve, or so. We then enter our teenage years. Teenagers have some characteristics that they mostly all share. Young adulthood years are eighteen to around twenty-one. After that, we're adults, doing things adults do. At forty-five, or so, we enter middle age although, by statistics out there, a majority of us are not going to live into our nineties. When we hit seventy, we're into old age, as I see it: We've had our kids, if that was happening, we've raised a family, we've gone through our active working years, kept up a home, etc. Now, before anyone starts criticizing the above, I fully, and totally understand the truism that everyone ages differently. Yes, I know that. I'm just speaking in very broad generalities in my age ranges, as above. So, my main point in posting this: I'm in my seventieth year on this planet. I've lived a rewarding, fulfilling life. I've done what I set out to do, been where I wanted to go, with a few exceptions, and achieved what I wanted to achieve. I'm happy with my life. Thing is, there's no way in hell that I feel like I'm 40, and no way I actually want to. I've paid my dues. I've earned whatever entitlements being an old man gives. If I drop dead tomorrow, dog forbid, I did not die young. I died an old man, as intended by Nature, in the grand scheme of things. Now, lest any of y'all think that I'm the proverbial old man, think again. In the past week I've wrestled a sliding patio door onto saw horses, installed new wheels on it, put it back on its tracks, torn open a wall behind the washing machine, cut out old cast iron fittings, installed PVC pipe, lugged a big pipe snake rig onto my roof to snake my drain line, and a few other things that required a fair amount of physical action on my part. Do I feel like I'm 40??? Oh, give me a damn break! As I type this, I feel like I've gone a few rounds with Muhammad Ali, in his prime! I'll be moving slower today as I haul the pipe auger back to HD. What is, then, the prime directive in life? In high school biology, we were taught that the main goal of the life force is to see us born, given the power to receive sustenance so we can age to sexual maturity, make offspring, and then die. Plain and simple, that resonated with me. What is our reward for living a very long life? Gee, everyone wants to be able to bear witness to one's own incipient decrepitude, right? As Is the recent case of a dear friend, in her nineties, everyone wants to live long enough to bury one's own child, right? No, for me, old age, at seventy, is fine. The world keeps turning, the younger people inherit the earth. Whether or not I believe that bodes well for the earth, and the continued survival of our species, is a subject for another rant, at another time. Finis!
I guess if I had been a wrestler or a boxer all my life, I feel like I'm 40. When I lived outside of DC, I would see some of the Redskins players around town. Joe Jacoby (a linebacker) was not yet 40 and he moved as though he were 80...it was actually heartbreaking. I don't want to live long enough to witness my own incipient decrepitude (maybe), but I also don't want to be as sharp and as lucid as I am and "just end." Regarding the premise: of course 70 is not the new 40. And Pepsi is not "For those who think young." I hate platitudes, especially when they're grammatically incorrect.
Sometimes I feel better than other times. Yesterday I fell and scared myself and hubby. I was stretching out to open a trash lid. Thank goodness a chair broke the fall. New BP med makes me dizzy. Getting old ain't for sissies like one of my cyber buddies said last year.I agree.