Years Young

There was a line in an interview with Judith Voirst that caught my eye and stayed with me. When asked if she associated herself with a different age in her mind, she responded, “I feel neither younger nor older than 94, but 94 now feels younger than I’d expected.”

When I read that line, I was still 50, and I felt the same way. 50 (or 51) feels younger than I expected when I thought about the age as recently as 40. Meaning, I’m not talking about thinking that 50 would feel old when I was 20. I’m saying that I thought 50 would feel old when I was just a few years away from turning 50. Now, 50 feels young, and I don’t really have an age that feels old. It’s weird how that mindset has sort of floated away with time.

I also thought this was a solid philosophy:

My friends and I love celebrating birthdays—ours and each other’s, and more than once, and not only on the actual birthday. When someone says they’re sorry they missed my birthday because it’s a month later, I say, “No you didn’t. We can still celebrate.”

What age do you think of as “old,” if any?