It’s that time of year when I begin looking forward to my Birthday.
In a little over two weeks I will be officially another year older. For some this might be an occasion to dread, but for me, I am ambivalent.
Another year, so what! Who cares! Life is measured in more than merely age. For me, it’s what I’m doing with the years that means more than the age I am, have been or will be.
I am not one of those people who wish to be eighteen again; never liked being eighteen when I was eighteen, so why would I want to go back and re-live it! Although, I do have friends who would give their right arm to be eighteen again, and I wonder why. What is so lack lustre about their current time and space that makes being eighteen again look so appealing?
I might not be eighteen, but I’m not exactly Methuselah either. Just yesterday I got asked for ID to purchase alcohol, I was highly bemused. I wasn’t afraid to produce the said ID and declare my age, I was more mortified of the fact my drivers licence has such a ghastly picture on it; I cringe every time I have to show it to a stranger!
So why does age, an increase in a number, bother us so much?
What makes eighteen OK and thirty (plus) such a shameful thing?
Why do people feel their life is over once they leave their teens or even their twenties? I just don’t get it!
I think this is where Spanish makes me smile. ¿Cuántos años tienes? Which is asking, how many years do you have. It’s not asking, how OLD are you, it’s asking about the years of life you have under your belt. It’s far nicer than discussing oldness!
Who is old anyway?
No one feels old. What does old feel like?
We’re all just subjects of our time and space, we don’t wake up one day and say; ‘you know what, I feel old’.
This is where western society seems to hold the answer. It is obsessed with age, oldness, wrinkles, grey hair, plastic surgery, recapturing a lost youth. Well, growing older is going to happen to all of us at some time or another. That’s what we share, a commonality, we will age. No amount of plastic surgery will change a biological age, it won’t stop time from ticking by.
We are not Dorian Grey, we are not immortal, we are human and we all age!
So, I may be looking at another year under my belt, but, my life won’t come to an end. Time marches on regardless of my age, time ticks on and so it should. I am not going to dread being older, I am not going to cry, I am older and wiser and more experienced.
Your life is an occasion, so rise to it!
I do not fear a number! I am made if sterner stuff than that! So, bring on my Birthday, I can’t wait for the cake!
The Savvy Senorita 