I'm Sixty!

How do I feel? Flummoxed.

Today marks the day I’ve completed sixty full years on this planet.

Which, according to one of the many bizarre customs we have, means that I can now say:

“I’m sixty.”

Do I feel sixty, you ask? Because of course you do.

I don’t know. I’ve never been sixty before.

I am a pill, as my grandmother used to say.

How do I feel?

Flummoxed.

What a great word. Underused. Fun to say! And so apt for today.

Completely, utterly bewildered, confused, or puzzled.

Oh, I feel that way a lot. In fact, flummoxment may be my most reliable emotional state. It’s right next door to wonder. A gateway drug, you could say.

Today, though, in particular? Fully flummoxed. Like: What?

How is this even possible?

I look out at the world through a twenty-something psyche. I lift heavy weights. I go to punk rock shows. I say inappropriate things, and I can still manage an impressive temper tantrum.

Maybe someone got the number wrong? Could have been me. I’m horrible with dates. Don’t expect me to remember your birthday.

Of course my knees hurt. So does my lower back, although that’s been hurting for about 45 years or so. I can’t remember people’s names, especially new ones, and I’ve gone from knowing every lyric and band member to, well, being good at Googling stuff.

I sing phonetically now.

I love AI and GPS. I pay attention to my BP and my HRV. I monitor my sleep and my diet and my exercise and my water intake.

I am the singularity, the enmeshment of man and machine.

There are apt clichés for how I feel: grateful, full of wonder, at peace, and so forth. See also: afraid, occasionally bitter, and envious.

I love all the people I’m supposed to love. But I no longer think love means a walk in the park.

Love is more like that year at Riot Fest, where it had rained for three days before the festival, and the entire weekend became an unrelenting mud walk. We were caked in dirt. Every footfall was an effort. Pulling your boots up out of the muck before plopping them back down again. Trying to find the less mucky places.

People slipped so often, it stopped looking accidental.

This is what real love is like, too. Messy. Effortful. Sometimes ridiculous. You keep trying to find the less mucky places. And yet: the show must go on.

And so it did.

And so it has.

And so it does.

Today, I’m sixty. I have been alive 21,915 days. Not sure where I was before that. Don’t remember any problems.

Not sure how many more days I’ll get here, or where I’ll go next.

I don’t expect to know. I’ve given up on knowing.

The day I was born, “Monday, Monday” was at the top of the charts. Nonetheless, I was born on a Wednesday, because apparently even then I had my own ideas.

Not the most uplifting song, that one, with its lyrics of impermanence and loss. But I do like it. If I had my druthers, I would have preferred “California Dreamin’.”

It was May 11 in Chicago, theoretically deep spring, though the city, my city, apparently celebrated my arrival with rain, fog, and its latest measurable snowfall on record. Oh, Chicago…

A perfect day to be born, in other words: confusing, dramatic, and not entirely cooperative.

Also, mercifully, it was an off day for the Cubs, who had been beaten 8-0 the day before by the dreaded Cardinals.

As far as I can tell, nothing else world-historical happened that day.

Just my arrival.

And as far as I’m concerned, today is a perfect day to turn sixty.

I’ve never hit the lottery before, but there’s no way it feels better than this.

Onward.

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Author’s note: If you’ve never read my Oldster Questionnaire responses, today might be a fun day to do so!

- Scott