Birthday day.....

Sixty-one. Six One. 61. No matter how you write it or how you say it, that number is a big ouch. Ouch, with a capital O.  How can this possibly be?  I don't see 61 when I look into that mirror...... I would guess maybe 45, possibly 50, but definitely not 61. 

I thought turning 40 was really no big deal........ I think my sister took my turning 40 harder than I did.......... she must have called me five times during that day, to let me know that it was ridiculous for her to have a sister as old as 40.  I would like to be 'as old as 40' now.  I would like to have a sister who still picks up the phone.  Neither one is going to happen, and life does indeed go on in its own sensible way. 

50 was a little harder than 40. Okay, let's be honest.  50 was a lot harder than 40.  I didn't see 50 looking back at me in the mirror back then, nor did I feel like what I thought 50 should feel like.  Last year's 60th birthday was depressing...... at that point, you're more than middle-aged, unless you have a guaranteed life span of 120 years.  (Which wouldn't be all that bad if you could be chronologically 120 and physically 48. Is that too much to ask?)

I think of myself at 61 and remember that my Aunt Dolly will be 100 years old this coming June. And even she says that turning 100 is impossible for her to believe.  Aunt Dolly still does everything she has always done, just not for so many people.  Our family doesn't all live within the same close-by zip codes any longer, so she's not cooking for a small army, but she's still cooking.  She's not cleaning a three-story-plus-basement house anymore, but she will 'clean up after the cleaning lady' leaves the house she lives in now.

In all of my memories, Aunt Dolly was the one always moving, doing, giving, going, thinking.... everyone else told her to 'slow down and relax a little.'   Her answer was "I'll be a long time dead, and I'll have plenty of time to relax then."   Maybe that's the answer to living till and beyond that 100th birthday---- keep moving, doing, giving, going, thinking. 

61. Not exactly a magic number. I'm past the big 5 - 0, and I'm past the big 6 - 0 now. So now I'm on the path to the big 7 - 0.  The next big one. Good grief.

But on the bright side....... life is good...... lots of family, lots of good friends, lots of birthday cards in the mailbox, lots of good books up in my new library that my husband worked so hard to put together for me.  All of those bookcases.... 14 of them...... and as he carried each one up those 15 steps, he was thinking "One little Kindle and these bookcases could be history."

He had asked me if I wanted a Kindle before we started that library.  "No way... not for this little library-bunny, thank you."  I need the book itself, the feel of the pages, the crispness of a new dust-jacket or the lovingly worn smoothness of a vintage volume.  A book. Real books, with gold-dusted page edges on the classics and that library-ness that a Kindle could never offer. 

A new third-floor library filled with bookshelves and books............ 61 is looking pretty good after all.