You can’t gaslight the calendar

January 2, 2025

Since we’re plunging into another year, I figure it’s a good time to talk about years in general and how we deal with their passage. This notion sprang from an X post congratulating the great Annie Lennox on her Christmas Day birthday, adding, “70 is the new 60.”

I wish Annie the best, but I really wish we’d stop this silly age denialism. Having logged my own 70 rides around the sun, I’m here to testify that you can’t just wish ten of them away. When I hit 60, my joints didn’t sound like a Brazilian drum band. I could drink two or three beers without falling into a walking coma. A “late night” stretched beyond 10:30. And when I slept, my snoring didn’t wake babies in the next county.

Back then I wasn’t always roaming the house looking for my phone, only to find it on my desk in plain sight. (My mother used to say, “If it had teeth, it would have bitten you.”) I also had fewer of these conversations:
My wife, watching TV: “That woman looks familiar. Who is she?”
Me: “You know; she was in the other movie by the same director.”
Wife: “You mean the Irish guy?”
Me: “No, what’s-his-name, the English guy. He was married to that French girl, the one who had the wardrobe malfunction at the pope’s Easter Mass. You know who I’m talking about.”

Denialism isn’t just for us seniors. I keep hearing that 60 is the new 40, 40 is the new 30, etc. What next: Ten is the new gleam in Daddy’s eye? What no one understands is that the lower number isn’t always better. You can’t know how to stay young until you’ve aged and picked up some wisdom and life experience, both the good and the bad.

At twenty I was a junior in college, struggling to find my feet in a new major. When I crossed the rubicon of thirty I had a good job but was basically broke. By forty I’d stabilized, moved up the ladder at work, and was having a fine time. At forty-five I made the best decision of my life, which was to get married. (We’re still together.)

As jazz giant Dizzy Gillespie said, “It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.” I’ve learned a little about what not to write, so instead of pontificating I’ll end things here by circling back to Annie Lennox with some tongue-in-cheek advice to, “Keep Young and Beautiful.” Y’all have a wonderful New Year now.