The time came before we knew it was upon us. It just sneaked right up our alley. The impact of the realization for each of us as individuals was just shocking and numbing at the same time. Where did the time go? Though I still feel as though I have a full lifetime ahead of me, I realize that I'm on the other side of the mountain, and the momentum is carrying me a little faster than I'd like to go. It's that old paradox of time flying by faster as we get older. More of this paradox is that at 60 years old, I don't feel any older inside. My insides aren't matching my outsides. I have arrived at the age where I look much better in clothes than out of them. This can't be all bad, since it has been said that it's good to be young at heart; not only that, I feel as though I've only just begun. Don't bury me yet!
It's true, you know. We've already experienced most of life's newness and now we are at the time in our lives when we are remembering when, wondering where it went and what on earth has gotten into the youth of today? The youth of today that I speak of are the people that are replacing us. Just who are they? Well, they are not strangers. The people replacing us are our children. We wondered what got into to them, and the kids we are wondering about now are our children's children, our grandchildren. What has gotten into them anyway?
I am seeing a new trend in the youth of today. They tend to take shorter days at work. Nearly all of them work out at one gym or another, and they don't just go out for dinner and party. You could hardly call it a date. This date usually starts out at 10:00 p.m. They usually meet up or hook up with their “date” at a designated hot spot and it goes from there. Where, I just don't know. It would hardly do for one of us (Boomers) to show up at one of these hot spots just to see what goes on. First of all, they'd all just fade into the cracks and disappear from our observance. Secondly, it's waaaayyyyy past our bed time.
There was a time when we would get up, go to work and put in a full day, solve all the problems of the world; come home and mow the lawn, go to the gym, play Spades, Hearts or Scat until 2 a.m. We could actually stay up past 9 p.m., watch an entire movie, finish a project or just read a book. We could party with the best of them until the wee hours and still show up for work the next day, on time. Now, it's lights out between 9 and 9:30 p.m., and that's on the week-ends.
We are still early risers after years of getting up early to go to work. Some of us just plain like getting up that early to greet the day and enjoy the quiet of a bowl of cereal and reading the newspaper. Those old habits are very hard to shake. I have been able to give myself permission to go back to sleep when I wake at 4:00 a.m. This works just fine until our dog starts pacing. If I didn't take his collar off the night before there is an additional clinking of his tags to the pacing and circling that he does when he wants us to get up. If I don't get up with that annoyance, the dog comes up to the bedside and gets as close to my face as he possibly can and stares. Then he gives a very gentle SNORT, or even worse a big BELCH! This means, GET UP! That does it! This is much worse than puppy breath. I simply cannot sleep through that, so I get up and he allows me to accompany him to get the newspaper. I'm up for the day.
We are giving our siblings and cousins and Baby Boomer friends very special turning point birthday parties to keep things in a celebratory mood instead of a mood of dread. Gift are usually gag gifts suitable for depicting our age. I will have to say that the birthday party given for me was one of the best and most upbeat birthday parties I've ever had. It does mark a turning point as well as a special recognition among peers. It is indeed a very special honor, and I will always have that fond memory and feeling of love and special closeness of our generation. You kiddies just turning 30 and 40 count yourselves lucky. You have arrived, and have your toes on the line, waiting for the starting gun. You've only just begun.
Most of us are practicing retiring, if we haven't already retired. We are taking little road trips and venturing away from home and work, a little afraid that it won't be there when we return.
We're getting a first hand look at our future, and it's a bit scary. We are in the final 20 or so years of our lives. That's almost hard to say; to form the words attaching "final days" to ones' self. Even harder, we are now are taking care of our parents, if we haven't already buried them and seen them off to the other side. On the other hand, we are learning once again to have compassion and patience. We will be there some day, and our children will have to learn these traits with us, seeing us into the final days of our lives. And, we want more than anything not to be a burden.
We've learned that being independent and self-sufficient is a gift, not to be taken for granted. It has been arduous getting to this point, and we know that life can be taken from us in the blink of an eye. So, we squeeze out as much as we possibly can savor every moment, because we know that life at all ages and in all forms is just so darned fragile.
