Countdown to 50 - As Old as I Feel

Daily random ramblings as I approach my 50th birthday next Monday.
[WARNING: THIS ONE LIVES DOWN TO ITS "RAMBLING" DESCRIPTION!]

Among my mom’s favorite aphorisms was “You’re only as old as you feel.” Variations on the same theme included “Age is just a number,” and “I’m 39 and holding.” I guess those were the slogans of her protest against aging.

Have you ever asked yourself how old you feel? Did you have an answer? I don’t, because I have no experience with ages other than with the ones through which I have already passed.

An exaggerated example: Due to the recent death of a Japanese citizen, a 114 year-old American now holds the title of world’s oldest living human. How can anyone other than possibly the 110+ crowd know anything about that lady’s experience? I can tell you what 49 feels like; talk to me on Monday and I will offer a snap review of 50. But as for any age I have yet to pass through... haven’t got a clue.

We have well developed age-based stereotypes, of course. Some true, some not. Some fair, some not: Kids are flexible and boundlessly energetic. Twenty-somethings are in the physical, albeit unrefined prime of their lives. Middle-agers expand around the waist, belly or behind. Seniors are wrinkled and deteriorated, at a deeply secreted rate moving inexorably to the end of their lives.

There is truth to any generalization, but not necessarily relevance. Most age-based generalizations aren’t relevant. What does it mean to feel "old," and why does it matter? Why do we cast our debilitations in terms of age rather than, say, symptoms?

Frequently I hear people grumble, “It’s not easy getting old,” as if age is the culprit, when clearly it is not. You rarely hear people say the more descriptive and accurate, “It’s not easy waking up with arthritis, or gout, or bad vision;” it’s more often about their age.

Hey! I could attribute my growing baldness to my age! After all, twenty years ago I had more hair than I now have. So, it’s not easy (nor as hairy) getting old.

With this essay I declare my independence from age. I am Bill Coley, a person increasingly fit for his....

Well, that didn’t work. I try again:

I am Bill Coley, a person who has to call his doctor in the next couple of weeks because the doc wants to check the usual suspects now that I am about to turn....

Not that either.

Hmm. Age is in fact just a number, but it seems to be an inevitable one.

How old are you?


Pray with me:
God, you are timeless. You offer the gift of forever to everybody. We can’t possibly know what forever feels like until we get there, but one day we will, because time and age mean nothing to you. Keep us on, but diverted from the clock, diverted so that we will spend more time living than counting. In the name of Jesus, Amen.