Now we are sixty. We have fallen arches and charley horses, carpal tunnel crises and night guards. Arthritis, tinnitus, indigestion. Dangly arms and droopy jowls. We’re gluten-free, caffeine cautious, and sober curious.
We do not seem to care much.
I sleep like a degenerate queen, with many pillows propping the troubled parts and a bulky brace on my wrist. The bedroom reeks of menthol and eucalyptus. If Steven dares to ask a question at bedtime, the night guard makes me lisp and my attitude is all sighs and side-eye.
I have a bird app. Sixty is apparently for the birds.
I think too much about purpose. I assumed this would be figured out by now. Instead, I’m sixty without purpose. I worry that I do nothing, but am so very drawn to doing nothing. Drawn like a moth to the flame of doing nothing.
My father is a full time job.
When I was ten, it was all about me. 1974, Slurpees and Top 40, a fat pony and Kathe’s farting grandmother. Little muscled body inhaling the world.
At twenty, I thought it was all about me, but it was muddied by the world’s narrative. A tale told by others about my body, my abilities, my rights. And, though I didn’t know it yet, the children were just around the corner.
Thirty was all about the children. Consumed and subsumed by the children, a fate I welcomed and loved. Oxytocin is a hell of a drug.
At forty, it was still about the children, but with flagging energy and fraying nerves. Frantic paddling, trying to keep all heads above water.
Fifty was about hormones. Perimenopause shook me for a fraught decade and forced me to take my eyes off every other ball. Drowning, quaking, seeking relief and refuge. That was fifty.
And now we are sixty. Sixty — the birthday I imagined would finally be about me again, the start of a new chapter in which I would FINALLY FIGURE IT ALL OUT!
Sixty is, instead, about aging and ailing parents. I have figured nothing out.
Now we are sixty and we carry the elders. We buy pill dispensers and whiteboards. We take them to appointments, sleep on their couches, and make meal plans. We cancel our own plans. The plans we started to make when the kids grew up — those are cancelled. For now.
The morning of my 60th birthday, I was sitting in a hospital with a palliative care nurse. The year has been lost in a fog of elder care. Sixty is grown kids with real world problems and old parents with end-of-life problems. Putting out fires and picking up pieces, still after all these years.
I jump gleefully off the wagon nearly every day. The drink doesn’t love me at sixty, but there’s some lovely low-alcohol vinho verde in the laundry room. “Drink very chilled,” it says and oh to be very chilled. Do we remember? We do not tolerate cocktails anymore, though we very much want to and continue to try. Maybe just a little? Maybe less frequently? White port and tonic? What is white port? I need to find out. It’s nearly summer.
Maybe I haven’t figured out how to be a person because I’m too busy trying to figure out how to be a person. I imagine the trick is just to be a person. Jesus, did it really take 60 years for that to bubble up? “Be a person.” This is my best advice to myself? No wonder I’m always searching and struggling.
I’m afraid. We’re all afraid. Afraid of death and suffering, rejection and irrelevance. We’re afraid of a burning planet and creeping fascism. Afraid of each other and afraid of ourselves, our bodies and minds.
I thought, by now, I’d be less bewildered by the world and less befuddled by its people. I had hoped for an easy peace with my body. Instead, I have surprise anxiety and a recurring flat sadness. I fear that I’m turning into one of those dour, slightly irritable old women that have turned me off before. “What’s her problem?” Now I know. So many things.
I used to know so much. Such a smartypants. Sixty whispers, you know nothing, and it’s actually a relief. I feel secure in the new knowledge that the universe is unknowable. It’s none of my business.
Sixty is a pivot point. We can sink into resigned sadness, a begrudging bitterness about roads not taken, missed opportunities, and garden variety failings. Or we can smile and stride bravely into the next chapter, armed with the lessons learned from all the previous shit. Which will it be? I vacillate, unsure at the sexagenarian fork. The crank in me wants to lean into the bad attitude, born of a million little cuts. But underneath the crab, there’s still a little miss sunshine who believes, incomprehensibly, that there may be gifts ahead. Who knows?
There is magic in this world. The white blossoms of the blackberry bushes are exploding just outside the kitchen window. A miracle in a sea of lush green, a promise of fat berries to come. The herd is in the back field, white flags bouncing, babies at their heels. A profusion of blooms everywhere, if you look. It’s as if the magical world has been, finally, distilled down to itself. And, finally, I notice. I spent decades seeking meaning and it’s been there all along, right in front of my dumb distracted face. Birdsong, blooms, and baby deer.
Now we are sixty. We hobble in our orthopedic shoes, we have physical therapists and take turmeric. Doctors order all the tests, we poop in boxes and have our breasts squeezed (or we should, I’m told). We’re astonished to be here, as if we’ve awakened in the wrong room, blinking and confused. “How did I get here?”
A snapshot of 60: I have rug burns on my knees. The reason is not interesting. I’ve been on my knees scrubbing my father’s rough carpet after an unspeakable explosive accident. He stood nearby with his walker, apologizing profusely and insisting that I shouldn’t have to deal with my father’s shit. But this is 60. Dealing with my father’s shit. I’ve been doing it, literally and metaphorically, for 5 years now.
It’s like having a child again. The helplessness of old men is so much more tragic than that of baby boys, however. Give me the joy and promise of a child over the sad decline of an old man any day.
How am I 60?
Also, I’m only 60.
Cheers! 🥂
Lisa
Things to share:
Anne Lamott has been writing so wonderfully about aging, I have to share. Gift links! We’re all on borrowed time. “So many indignities are involved in aging, and yet so many graces, too.” I don’t know. “Now there is some acceptance (partly born of tiredness) that I can’t rescue or fix anyone, not even me.”
Merlin is such fun. Each day, I sit outside with my phone (I know) and the app listens to birds and identifies them. It feels deliciously like doing nothing, but I’m learning birdsong. I heard a yellow-billed cuckoo in my backyard — who knew!
This little speech by Fredrik Backman is hilarious and charming.
I am 59. I can't remember the last time I felt so seen.
Wahoo, this is brilliant in its raw vulnerability and hilarious realism! I know, it’s not funny. But when we clearly are living the same life we can see the humour in it, as if the Universe is saying ‘oh yeah?, take this!’.
I am almost sixty and living this life. When I was going through the heart shattering elder care of my parents, my friends who had walked the path before me said things would be much better…after. And they are because I don’t have to be a regular witness to great human suffering, yet I am still floundering a little.
I take comfort that apparently seventy year old folks are the happiest of folks.
Thanks for this excellent essay Lisa.