60

On the eve of my 8th birthday, lying in bed, crack of yellow light from the hallway slipping under my door, I bawled. Quietly soaked my pillow case. I did not want to turn 8. I loved 7. I did not want it to end. 7 was a such a good number. My birthday is 7/7 highlighting this fact.

Birthdays have never been daunting to me other than that night. I usually found myself embarking on new decades of my journey with a certain zeal.

This Sunday on 7/6, after a wonderful party celebrating my last day of 59, I crawled into bed sated by gratitude of friends and family. I was hashtag blessed.

Then it happened.

In the dark, in the white light of the moon through my bedroom curtains, the most awful realization happened. If I fall asleep, then next moment I wake, I will be…60.

Absolute panic set in. I couldn’t have this! This was BEYOND unreasonable!! Meltdown COMMENCE!! Fully awake now, and strung OUT at the prospect! I challenged the Universe to explain the logic of this to me!! Presented verbal arguments of youthful documentation! The tears flowing down my face were bigger than the macarons served hours earlier! Bawling! I was bawling like a 7 year old on the eve of her 8th birthday!! My husband Alex, commissioned by marriage to try and calm me in this moment, suggested it was “great” by saying “you’re two 30 year olds”. IT DID NOT WORK! I got up, went outside, stared at the pool, at the sky, at the dark, and ranted my case against 60!! Yes, it’s just a number. But this number was NOT for me!! It is a BIG number!! OLD! One that simply does not FIT inside my reasoning. I farted, and it made me cry harder considering THAT may be my last fart in my 50’s. I peed and cried harder as that may be the last leak of my 50’s. Poor Alex. What a conundrum he had on his hands! Oh, how he tried. VALIANTLY!! and so sincerely, so loving. I was inconsolable, although thanks to my good humored partner, we managed to also laugh wildly. This may have been my best 30 minute “set” ever, and all of it gone now. It was devastating to me. Much like the time (according to Alex) I awoke in the middle of the night, felt my tail bone, and went into a full blown panic attack believing my spine had slipped about an inch, thereby protruding my “tail”…bone. I thought I had a tail! I was able to grab my tail between my pincer fingers…because my spine had …dropped. ( It didn’t. It was my butt that dropped, thus making my tailbone a bit more available. For my pincers. Fucking hell).

I cried myself to sleep, snotty nose and all, with a mosquito bite on my mons pubis itching like mad, and woke….to 60.

It was Monday, 7/7, and I was 60.

. I am 60.

It was an emotional day, but a GOOD day.

LOADS of well wishes by phone and social media. I was kept busy! That was good!

My step count for the day was 471, proving I was in no rush to go deeper into my new decade. But I did stare at it. I stared at my gifts. I stared at my messages. I stared at the words people chose for me. I stared at my face. I stared at my body (thanks for the suggestion, Katie!) I stared at my dogs, my feet, my hands. The fridge full of leftovers. The beautiful flowers sent by loved ones. Stared out the window(s).

By the time 9:00 pm rolled around, and we decided to go to bed, some things had changed.

All that staring, the considering, the ruminating, the revelations…I landed somewhere new:

I am my own 60.

It’s not the one I perceived all my life. The “old” lady. It’s not the “old” characters I portrayed over the years like “Lorraine” from Mad Tv (whom I always said was between 60-65!!), it’s not the “done” generation, nor the exasperated being.

It’s just me. As is.

I know WHO I am. I know WHAT I am. I know what I am capable of, and what I am not capable of anymore (there’s a growing list.. who gives AF).

My sister Molly told me yesterday that she had a conversation with our Dad about me. He said I was always kind, and that people always liked me. WHAT?!!!!! I can’t tell you HOW deeply stunned I was to hear this! Growing up I made a grand (and wrong assumption) that people did NOT really like me, but rather PRETENDED to like me because they were nice. I saw myself as too shy to be likable. Too invisible. Too messy. Too many pimples. Weak jawline. Too desperate. Too annoying in my mere presence. ( I also know where the hideous self loathing came from, but that’s another post).

Molly was surprised I did not know I was liked! She went on to further fill in who she saw in me growing up. She did not see shy. She saw gentle! Again, floored!

So here’s what happened when I crawled into bed on my first night as a 60 year old, fabulous woman: I reframed my entire childhood. I swept away the miscalculations of myself. I recalibrated who I am, and who I ALWAYS was. Gentle, kind, and well liked. Can You believe it?? Can I believe it?? Yes. I do now. (Thank you, Molly! You are incredible at life with your 80’s energy!)

What misconceptions of yourself are you still hanging on to? Remove them! Also, I have to say, we should up the frequency in telling one another how we see them, particularly the good stuff. Help each other recalibrate the bullshit so we can live how we truly are.

It’s one thing to go to sleep fully embracing a new notion. The test is in how we wake up, and can we take steps wearing these new vestments. Or rather INvestments in ourselves.

I woke up knowing who I am today, but even greater, who I have been all along.

Sixty may be an old number, but I am not old. I’m the same as I have always been, with a whole lot more. What a lucky lass I am.

Been sitting here for over an hour writing this, which means when I get up, my bones will creak, and I will have to “walk out” some stiffness. Pretty cool, right? Me and my full life did that! My body has such incredible wear and tear. Proof of life. But I still have great “sideboob” according to my sexy husband. So there’s that.

What a pile of good stuff I sit upon. Me and my tail

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