DOWN HOME:
How many birthdays add up to middle-age?
___"Unless you're planning to live way, way past 90, you're middle-aged," Molly declared the other day.
___Don't you just hate it when kids see things that are obvious to the "real world" but invisible to their parents?
___Molly, our 14-year-old, has my number. And apparently, it's a middle-aged number at
that.
___Maybe Molly's right. Some guys my age own Harleys. Some have little sports cars. With the big 4-5 looming on the horizon, maybe I need to acknowledge I'm middle-aged.
___However, my perspective on aging --not unlike my eyesight--has changed through the years.
___When I was a kid, I was certain middle-age began at 35. Don't ask me how I came to that understanding. I just knew.
___That's why 35 turned out to be my most traumatic birthday yet. The kid in me expected to wake up feeling strangely older a decade ago, when I turned 35. I thought maybe my hair would fall out (that took a little longer), or I'd have trouble climbing stairs, or I'd have this insatiable desire to watch reruns of "The Lawrence Welk Show."
___What a relief to realize nothing really changed when I turned 35. Except my wife, Joanna, threw me a surprise party, and I saw the look of pity in younger friends' eyes.
___But I still felt the same. Still liked the same kind of music, same clothes, same food. Still loved my wife and doted on my kids. Still enjoyed my job.
___For the past decade, I've been in denial about this middle-age thing. What is "middle-age," anyway?
___My body decided to become middle-aged when I was about 38 or 39. It granted itself permission to gain weight, even when I didn't change my diet or exercise regimen.
___My hair agreed to be middle-aged somewhere along the way. Some of it turned loose and let go. Some just turned gray.
___ I've always liked that commercial where the woman says, "You're just as young as you feel." And since I "feel" 19 or 23--except for my feet, which feel stiff when I get up in the night-- I've told myself I wasn't middle-aged yet.
___I lied, of course.
___That's where Molly's iron--clad teen logic comes in. She doesn't consider how I "feel" or what music I like. She considers that, unless I'm going to live to be incredibly old, my life's somewhere in the neighborhood of half over. And that's the middle. And so I'm middle-aged.
___Some of my friends try to avoid the subject of birthdays. I don't. Not that I'm like a kid about gifts anymore. But birthdays are a good excuse to eat dessert, enjoy the company of my family and thank God for these years of life--45 so far, mid-way to 90.
___
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