I’m celebrating my birthday week. Well…MONTH really, but I don’t want to sound greedy. I’m about to celebrate my 62nd trip around the sun. Sixty-two is NOT old. Not to ME. What does 62 feel like, anyway? What does it look like? Am I supposed to take naps and buy sensible shoes? Am I supposed to color my hair and wear purple? When my kids look askance at my fringed biker-chick bag, I tell them fringe is in…leave me alone.

Boomers changed the world. And we’re changing it again as we retire. We’re downsizing and traveling. We’re playing pickleball and buying kayaks. We’re thumbing our noses at the same establishment we have since the Sixties. We’re telling “The Man” that we can’t be defined by a number. We’re telling our kids we have lives to live, places to see, things to do. We invented the bucket list. We are a force to be reckoned with and we won’t sit down and shut up! There’s power in numbers, people. Don’t sit down and wait to die. Any of us could go this afternoon…or 40 years from now. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to wring this thing dry. I want to be remembered as that wild, wonderful woman who lived every…single…day. I want to suck the marrow from the bone. I want to use up every single resource…every single cell…every ounce of strength God has gifted me with.

And I’m going out au naturale. I will never color my hair again. I will never have plastic surgery or liposuction or Botox. I will never have acrylic nails again. I seldom, if ever, wear makeup. I’m curvy and real. My body bears the symbols of motherhood and grandmotherhood. I’m soft and juicy and rich and raw. I’m brassy and loud. And…I’m in love with life.

Let’s celebrate our age! I know there are many who suffer illness as we get older. Even with that, we can find some small thing to celebrate if we look hard enough. Sixty is the new forty…OLD is the new YOUNG!

❤

“Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness.”

Proverbs 16:31