Birthday Blues
I turned 76 today. Big number, scary number, a number that says “You’re irrelevant and it’s downhill from here, way downhill.”
The weeks before my birthday, I was looking forward to it, for an absurd reason: It would prove that my stress-prone, Type A behavior didn’t kill me prematurely. Of course, no one is thinking about that.
Unvarnished, our birthday is just another day, something everyone gets, unearned. But at 12:01 and I saw that my Google profile had changed my age from 75 to 76, my feeling was gratitude, not just that I made it but that I’m still at 100%.
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But what’s ahead? The continued involuntary glide path toward retirement--Not many prospective clients look past the number 76. More gardening and time to hand-water — customizing for each plant plus enforced moments to smell the roses. An ever-widening gap between my prizing meritocracy while the world accelerates radical anti-merit redistribution toward “equity.” My most deeply held belief is that such policies are but short-term feel-good, ”virtue” signaling and a guarantor of devolution to ever lower common denominators and decreased world flourishing. Then of course, there’s the inevitable shit hitting my fan — No one escapes. The best we can hope for is to die in our sleep — small chance.
So, I try to make the most of each minute, yes minute: See that extra client, write that extra piece, even if few will read it — like the essay you’re reading now. I am grateful for my physical and mental health, for my wife of a half century, and for my doggie, Hachi.
I hope to be able to write to you on my next birthday.
I read this aloud on YouTube.
Marty Nemko is a career and personal coach and author of 36 books including How to Do Life and Senior Stories. You can reach him at mnemko@gmail.com
