Old is the New...Old

Today is my birthday. I hate my birthday. The only people who really enjoy birthdays are four. Then it’s all candles, presents and “Look you can read!”

It's all downhill after that.

I celebrate birthdays the same way I do New Year’s Eve. With depression. I’m surrounded by smarter, younger and more successful people while I on the other hand, have spent the past year accomplishing nothing of importance or merit.

Okay, Jasper is housebroken. Yay me.

So on the anniversary of my birth anyone who tells me the following will be smacked: “It’s better than the alternate,” “MY AGE HERE is the new 20,” or the worst: “It’s not how old you are, it’s how you feel.”  

People who say shit like that are lying like Trump. I have two words for them: fuck you.

I assure you I’m grateful to be looking at grass from above rather than below. However, MY AGE HERE is absolutely NOT the new 20. Nothing is.

I don’t care if you’ve had more plastic surgery than Pricilla Presley, and carry around more silicon than Kim Kardashian’s butt, if you’re female and north of 50, no is mistaking you for 25. Or 30. Or 45. That is, if they notice you at all. Women over 50 are invisible.

Except for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But she’s not even human, she’s a spectacular  genius cyborg sent here to save us all.

Maybe age really is about how you feel. Well, right now, I don’t feel so young.

A riding accident recently left me with a broken pelvis and a broken sacrum. For three months I needed a walker. If you ever want to feel old and useless, try depending upon a walker. Not only is every single movement awkward, but things takes four times as long as usual. At least.

Chores I’d never given a second thought to, such as feeding the horses, were suddenly complicated and took an eternity. Eventually I learned how to balance hay flakes on my walker without dropping them or falling over. The day I fed the horses in under an hour I felt like Usain Bolt.

At the time my mom was living with me, and she relies on a walker for mobility. It was like looking in a mirror of my future; it wasn’t pretty. Think “Gray Gardens” with mobility devices.

Mom has a much, much better attitude about aging than I do. She has a sense of humor and has accepted it as inevitable. I, on the other hand prefer denial and fury.

But I even admit the dueling walkers had its moments. It was hilarious when we went out to dinner. Traffic backed up forever as we creeped across the road.  The looks on other patron’s faces as we rolled into restaurants was priceless. (Had they unintentionally booked for the Early Bird Special?)

Everyone knows that aging effects the memory. But I’m not talking about the usual “Where did I leave my car keys?” stuff.

I’m thinking about those forms that ask you your age. When I was dealing with smaller numbers, I knew it immediately. 16! 18! 21!

Now I have to ponder the answer. Sometimes there is math involved. This is not good; I’m a proud English major who flunked Algebra 1. Twice.

My sister-in-law once got into an argument with someone who insisted Nancy was a year older than she is. It wasn’t until Nancy yanked out her driver’s license that they realized she was two years younger than either of them thought. Yay?

After my latest accident, a number of people insisted (unasked, mind you) that, since my bones were obviously fragile I needed to give up riding. They never failed to point out that I’ve broken three bones in the last three years.

Even though I never seriously considered quitting riding, I did ask the doctor at my bone density test his opinion. He pointed out that when I broke my foot because my mare stepped on me, my hand broke when I slammed it into a horse’s neck and twisted (I broke my other hand in a similar way when I was in college) and this time, well, I hit the ground with velocity from a pretty good distance.  

It wasn’t like I just tipped over and shattered. He proclaimed me good to go.

But as I headed for the door, he said the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. He looked me directly in the eye and said earnestly, “Don’t fall off the horse anymore.”

I don’t know what kind of people he usually hangs out with, but I have never, ever, gotten on a horse planning to fall off. In fact I spend most of my time doing my best to avoiding hitting the ground.

Shit sometimes just happens.

Then it hit me. That doctor is younger than I am.  He’s got a great career and way more degrees than I will ever have. He probably has a wife and kids.

But I am wiser than him. At least in this regard.  

Shit does happen, That may be my next tattoo.

But today I’ll call it wisdom.

Happy Birthday to me!