Age is relative, isn't it?

As a rather intimidating birthday arrives for me this month, or as people can be heard to say loudly within my hearing, "Gee, someone is having a BIG birthday this month. I wonder who that could be?" Look no further. The buck stops here.

I am trying to be retrospective about this Major Life Event, of course, summoning all my knowledge of the eastern religions to help me. Unflappable is the attitude I'm going for. Calm in the line of fire, peaceful, mature.

I often wonder why we don't get to choose our own age. Isn't it true that we're not getting older, we're getting better? Aren't we only as old as we feel? Getting older beats the alternative and all that. Yeah, right.

In our country there's more of a stigma to accumulating years than in others. Other cultures revere age, but we don't. More often we try to cover up the reality with surgeries, hair dye and clothes because it's a sin to get old, especially if you are female.

Watching Sean Connery cavort in a movie with Catherine Zeta Jones tells us more than we need to know about how unsightly it is for a woman to age.

But what actually defines age? Lined faces, gray hair, stiff joints, lack of knowledge of Britney Spears?

Maturity, something we wish for our children, is something we ourselves shy away from. It's a tough concept to define. Is maturity just knowing certain things or knowing right from wrong? Having a good idea of how we will react to life's speedbumps in the road? Maybe knowing how you will react to adversity is a clue.

In most ways, facing a Monumental Birthday can be described as adverse. Even if you plan on ignoring the fact or try to accept it gracefully, others probably won't let you. Either they want to think of you as older (and them not, of course) or they are anxious to pull you into their oldster club to join them in sitting back and letting the world pass you by.

I think taking note of a birthday is valuable. We wish for all people a long life but then we spend half of that time trying to make them feel inadequate because they have had the audacity to grow older. They are not quite up to the task.

There are some perks that come with a mature age. Like when you say, "I've never eaten swordfish," people realize there's some weight behind that statement because that's a long time. Or when you say I've wanted to be a ballerina all my life, it has a certain impact. Much more so than when youngsters make those kinds of statements.

While we are living these later years, we are constantly being told they aren't as good as ones we spent in our youth. Says who? Who ever decided that?

I say celebrate. However long a life you are blessed with, enjoy yourself, grab the gusto. Life should be a celebration because it is so precious. Enjoy every day rather than lamenting the passage of time. The past only serves to season the present.
Don't let it hold you back. The future awaits. New and pure and unknown.

There's a certain je ne s'ais qua that comes with growing older. Grasp it and hold on.

By Teresa K. Flatley
2001