Carpe Them Diems (LynnK)

A stranger has moved in with me. I almost never see her. She doesn’t bother the cat. Or clean, or eat, or help with the rent.

But I know she’s here. Every now and again, when passing a mirror or windowglass, I catch a glimpse of her. She’s drab, with more lines on her face than you’d find on a map of the world. Her hair is the color of a Brillo pad. Saggy bits and pieces of her prove the existence of gravity. I wish she’d go away.

But apparently I am stuck with her. She is my body. Not the one I feel, to be sure. Not even the one I inhabit. Definitely not the one I acknowledge. She lives in reality, poor thing, and I repudiate reality. My mind dwells, by choice, in D’Nial, a land where I look like I never did. Not even when I was wraith-slim and rather notably attractive.

I can’t be the only Boomer haunted by the Ghost of Geezer Future. Way back in 1961, when all the world lay in front of us, Jenny Joseph was writing a poem that has become an anthem for us all. It begins:

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick the flowers in other people's gardens . . .

This sounds pretty much like license to do whatever we want. Age becomes shiny armor, protecting us from conscience and criticism, clanking so much that we can’t hear the negative voices. Or maybe it’s just calling us to let go our inhibitions and set a bad example for a change.

Lately, the media are full of stories about triumphant seniors. A woman in her 90's throws a heckuva shot put. Or puts a heckuva shot. What is that sport about, anyway?

Not long ago, a golfer scored her first-ever hole-in-one on a regulation course. She’s 103.

An expert on athletic performance notes that "average" (non-elite) female runners in their fifties are bettering the times achieved by women in their twenties. "...older women may be faster because, oddly enough, they are trying harder than younger women and discovering for the first time what they are capable of." He describes it as "a kind of wakening, an epiphany."

That’s certainly my idea of what we should be doing . . . minus the sweaty running part. With time’s winged chariot hurrying near, we need to wake up and get going on those epiphanies.

One of them, surely, is to work at staying, or becoming, healthy. I’ve made a firm commitment to that. No danger of me overdoing it, though. My natural state is inertia.

I’ve also thought of compiling one of those Life Lists that people are talking about. You know, coming up with (and pursuing) the "50 (or 100) Things I Want To Do Before I Die."

Given the shortening time and my lack of interest in anything that involves danger or too much effort, maybe I’ll go for a list of 20 or 25. Any suggestions? I’ll post my list when I’ve devised it (with your help, I hope). Feel free to post your own lists as well.

Time’s winged chariot is coming after us all. We may as well hitch a ride and fly while we can!