Senior Citizen

I am officially a senior citizen.  I enter the last age bracket today, the same one as my mother.  There is something somehow tragic about it, though I am lucky to be able to celebrate the event with my mother today.  Not many people get to do that, I think, or at least not so many.

I am not going to the factory today, so some of my peeps had a little celebration yesterday.  Of course, they all said the same thing.  "Age is a state of mind."  No, I said, it is in the body.  I tried to look under the bed this morning and couldn't.  "Why were you looking under the bed?"  I was trying to find my shoe.  I need one of those mirrors on a stick.  Sad laughter all around.  There is a truth in it.

From now on, when I go to the doctor with some malady or complaint, I will be looked at and told with a gentle shaking of the head, "Well, you're going to have to live with that.  There isn't much we can do.  If you'd had this ten years ago, maybe. . . ."

I have been feeling bad for myself as you know.  It is a personal tragedy.  Oh, you can say it is pathetic, but I am free to disagree.  It is a tragedy alright.  It shakes the very makeup of my universe.  More than anything else, it is embarrassing.  

Some people tell me it could be worse.  They are right.  It will be.

Ili is making me a cake today.  My mother will come to dinner tonight.

Things are as they are.  I've always hated birthdays.  This one is not an exception.