65 is Coming in Hot!

I’m a couple weeks from turning age 65 and I vacillate from being incredulous to feeling like, so what? It’s just a number. I am still healthy. I work part time and have some money saved to retire so I can stop working if I feel like it. I know I’m one of the lucky ones. But I don’t want to stop yet; I like my work. I’m an oncology infusion nurse — I give chemotherapy. It provides a way to give back and creates some structure in my life. It challenges me mentally, but it also feeds my soul. I love my patients and working with my much younger co-workers. My work also keeps me grounded and grateful most of the time.

I don’t think of myself as old because I’m not (I tell myself) but I do see changes in my looks. I still weigh the same as I did 10 years ago but things have shifted. The skin on my body has slackened here and there. I see crepey skin on my upper arms and neck. I have deep lines my forehead. My lipstick bleeds a little into the lines by my mouth like the old ladies I used to feel sorry for. But now, it’s me. I could probably fix it to some extent, but I just can’t pull the trigger. It would probably help me to get rid of my 10x magnifying mirror, but then I would have difficulty seeing my eyebrows to pluck them. It’s a double-edged sword.

I’m single — wasn’t planning on this when I plotted my life years ago. I thought I would be one of the stable ones — long marriage, by now enjoying grandchildren and traveling with my husband like many of my friends. But it didn’t turn out that way. My marriage imploded 10 years ago, a month before my 25th anniversary. It was a very difficult time and adjustment. I’m proud of how I rebalanced myself and revived my old nursing career. Last year, I bought my first house and started a new job in a new area. A crazy leap but I am so grateful I did it. I love my neighborhood and community. Sometimes I sit in my front room on my new sofa (because it will be my last sofa, so it had better be a good one) and I am just in awe. I trusted my intuition, took a leap and feel so grateful.

I did have a couple of romances during these last 10 years. I think they were lovely and necessary for a couple reasons. It was nice to be a grown up with a whole different perspective and connect with someone. We weren’t looking to raise a family. We each had our own resources. It was shocking at this “grown up” age to still have these “teenagery” fluttering feelings of excitement and desire. And it was divine to be desired. To have someone tell you that you were funny and smart. But in the end, they didn’t work out. Two years ago, after the last one ended there was a shift in me.

The desire to partner, or the expectation that I “should” partner (letting down my girlfriends who enjoyed my regaling them with Match.com stories of strange meetings — and I have some doozies) has calmed for the most part. But I admit, no one is knocking at my door, so I really don’t have a choice. In the two years since then I have traveled extensively, buried both my parents and sold my childhood home. I guess I have been busy — but not running away from myself. I think it is more like, experiencing myself, believing in myself, trusting my inner voice and allowing the Universe to have its way with me.

I must also admit however, that even though I try to keep my mind in a place of calm and gratitude, occasionally, when I look in the mirror, the reflection rather shocks me. I must now make little adjustments like, making sure things aren’t in my teeth after eating because of the crevices from my receding gums — this, despite my best efforts at dental hygiene. My 32-year-old female dentist pointed this out during one of my recent visits.

“Haven’t you heard the saying ‘Long in the tooth?” I replied to her comment.

She giggled and said she had never heard this phrase.

I didn’t even try to explain because, putting myself in her place, I don’t know that I would care to hear what I have to say. To her, my age seems so far away. To me, her age and vantage point feels like yesterday.

There must be something from the impending 65 that causes the cliches to increase exponentially. A few weeks ago I visited another healthcare provider who gave me a comprehensive exam and among many recommendations, suggested I find a functional medicine doctor. She gave me a list of referral docs.

“Which would you suggest?” I asked as I looked at the list. She hesitated.

“They are all great” she replied.

“Who do you use?” I asked.

“Well, Sarah, but she’s pretty young and I’m not sure how she would be with the elderly.”

Elderly. Elderly? I looked behind me like Robert DeNiro in “Taxi Driver.”

Elderly — screw you elderly (I will admit I had another word typed here). I know I’m a little rough around the edges these days but 2 years ago someone was telling me I was hot (granted, he was 8 years older than me). This bullshit comment bothered me on a deep level.

I got home and googled elderly. Sure enough, 65. But it’s like, “young elderly”. Yeah, that makes me feel better.

Last week I was in a resort town with my dear friend who is 56. We were having a girls overnight catch-up. We stopped to listen to some music on that beautiful summer evening at a vintage hotel in the small city where we were saying. We noticed this man in green (we called him the leprechaun because he was short, wore a green vest and pants), walking around and chatting up the various groups listening to the music. Eventually he made his way over to us.

“Hey, are you girls here for the weekend?” he asked.

“No,” my friend said cheerfully, “just here for one night.”

“Oh, doing a mom daughter thing?”

Silence. My eyes now totally averted (or did I give him the stink eye — I was in too much shock to recall). Regardless, he continued to blather, somehow sensing he had fallen into an abyss. He went on to Plan B— “Oh, a girl’s night.” But it fell on deaf ears as far as I was concerned. I had been pegged as my friend’s mother which meant, at least in chronological years, that I gave birth at the precocious age of 8. I felt my ears ringing — it was literally an out of body experience!

My friend and I walked back to our hotel with the sunset and cicadas (in Illinois we are experiencing cicada apocalypse). Being the lovely friend she is, she talked about her younger friend in her 40’s that she gets mistaken for as her mother all the time. Now that’s a true friend, making up a story to help you feel better.

Meanwhile, I focused on making my Medicare elections, sifting through the piles of information. For the last six months I had been receiving mailings and calls, listening to podcasts and researching. I finally pulled the trigger and made my choices. One day, my Medicare card arrived in the mail. I snapped a picture of it and texted it to my younger sister with the comment: “I am officially old.”

The next workday, I had a patient who shared the same upcoming birthday as mine, except he was 9 years younger. Being my patient, it’s sometimes not the best omen. He had stage 4 cancer but you would never know it by looking at him. He was a little thin but did not look sick. He shared that his youngest daughter had just graduated high school and was planning to become a nurse. We chatted about birthdays and I don’t know what happened to me, but I completely spaced (early dementia?) who I was talking to.

“You just wait,” I remarked, inwardly feeling this kinship with our mutual birthdays but momentarily not even considering our hugely divergent circumstances, “once all the Medicare stuff starts coming in the mail and the phone calls. All the choices — it’s overwhelming.”

He paused.

“I hope I’m here for that,” he said quietly.

Sometimes the Universe slaps me upside the head and says, “Snap out of it!”

Thank you, my dear patient. Thank you for that nugget of reality. I hope my stupid comment ricocheted out of your mind as soon as I said it. I could torture myself for that thoughtless moment, but I’m so sick of beating myself up. Instead, I say thank you for the reminder to have gratitude for the mundane, because there are literally those around you who would give anything for that experience. To experience crow’s feet and wrinkles. To be overwhelmed with Medicare choices. To be single and have lots of choices. To be alive and laugh at being called your friend’s mom. Because really, shouldn’t we laugh at all of it?