Milestone Birthday

If they put as many candles on my birthday cake as years I am celebrating, I don’t think I have the lung capacity to blow them all out.

How did this happen? How did 75 years go by so quickly?

What did my parents imagine for me?

 Wasn’t I just a Brownie? Sweet 16? Spending my college years protesting? Able to vote?  Having babies? Dreading 50?  

Not letting 50 slow me down

Whoosh…

How did I go from scraped knees to a knee replacement?

How can my baby be 50 with adult children of her own?

Age is not just a number. It is a collection of lived experiences, of good and bad memories, of fears and hopes. Of wrinkles.

Reading from the first draft of my novel - a new adventure in my 70’s

I will be celebrating with family and friends for an entire weekend, surrounded by those who’ve known me longest and those who have only known me for a few years. Some of them will be looking back at their own 75th, others will have trouble imagining what it’s like to be this old.

At the risk of being maudlin, I have no idea how many birthdays I have left. So I’ll just be grateful for every candle I add.