Growing Old With/In/Dignity

So, today is my birthday. Yay!

Last year, I celebrated a “milestone” birthday–the big 5-0, as they say–so I have a lot of friends who’ve also recently or will soon celebrate their own mid-century milestones. There’s something about milestone birthdays that brings out the denial and lamentations. “Me? I’ll be 29 again this year!” Or “I’m 39 and holding!” Or “I can’t believe I’m getting so old! Look at my chin/neck/knees/crow’s feet.” I’ve said it, too.

The older I get, the more often I hear, “Yeah, I don’t celebrate birthdays anymore. I just try to forget that I’m having one!”

I betcha know where I’m going with this.

That last one, especially, has come to stick in my craw. We’ve all heard the axiom, “Growing old is a privilege denied to many.” The thing is, it’s true. There’s not a one of us, cancer survivor or no, who can take another birthday for granted.

Aging is a gift, and it is humbling. Your body seems to begin conspiring against you: you can’t eat or drink what you used to, not without surprising consequences. You can go as hard as you did in the previous decade, but it will take twice as long to recover. And everything seems to drift down, crinkle up, or both.

Aging with cancer is especially humbling. Ever since my first round of chemo, I belch like a seventh grade boy. It happens without warning. I almost look forward to the day one erupts in class or a faculty meeting. It’s a side of me so few have seen. Or, rather, heard. And then there’s what I’ve come to call the “sudden snot.” Something in my current treatment makes my nose drip, and it happens so quickly that I end up with a long string before I even know it’s begun. I don’t have enough stamina for running with my legs at present, so my nose is making up for it.

TMI? Well, that’s one of the good things that comes with growing older–you no longer give a fig what others think about you anymore.

And then there are the memory issues. I haven’t forgotten what I wanted to say about that…though that could happen. I’m just saving that subject for another day. Really.

When I turned 40, I didn’t tell anyone it was a “big” birthday, because a lot of people I knew thought I was several years younger than I was, and I thought preserving that fiction was important. Now I wish I’d kicked up my heels and had a big bash. By the time I turned 50, I understood just what an incredible privilege growing older really is, and I owned it. And I plan to own it for every birthday I’m lucky enough to have for the rest of my life. And I urge you to own your years, too.

Aging is humbling. It’s not for the faint of heart, as they say. I say, embrace all its indignities and laugh all the louder for it. You’re still here. That’s the best gift any of us could wish for.