OPINION: When Im 63…

Written by Marianne Mansfield

If Paul McCartney had written the song as “When I’m 63” rather than 64, I’d have a much more clever intro to this column. But, alas, Paul went a different direction. 

I recently turned 63. For reasons that aren’t always clear to me, I like saying my age. Perhaps, vainly, I’m hoping that people to whom I announce my age will draw back in shock and say something like “No way! You can’t be. You don’t look nearly that old.” Or maybe I want my listeners to know that I’m not one of those people who feels compelled to keep my number of years on this Earth a secret. Have we done something to be ashamed of by living this long, I wonder? Or maybe I need to hear my very own voice saying the number aloud, because the woman inside me has no idea how old she is.

Most days, I feel no different than I did 10, or even 15 years ago. At least, that’s what my Inside Woman would claim. She chooses to ignore certain real-world facts, most days. My Inside Woman has a rich fantasy life, mostly unburdened by the inconvenient truths of the real world. For instance, she seldom is willing to acknowledge that our memory is still good, but not great, and better when we are trying to recall what we did 15 years ago than what we had for breakfast. Inside Woman mostly ignores the fact that more words go missing from the tip of our tongue now than even a few months ago. Moreover, she blithely downplays it when it takes us more than a few minutes to figure out how to use a function on our cell phone that we haven’t used in a while. Outside Woman’s mantra has become, “Just a minute. Let me think about it. I can figure it out.” Inside Woman waits, distractedly, for us to move on.

Inside Woman has been running into some difficulties of late, however, keeping her fantasy world intact. We recently became a great-grandmother. Another generation of our extended family began life on Earth in the person of one very beautiful little girl, Harper Ann, who was born two days after we turned 63. And then, my mother-in-law turned 94, eight days after Harper entered the world. Pauline informed us that she is aiming to reach the age of 100. I know this woman and I wouldn’t bet against her, despite the odds. Both birthdays place us squarely on life’s timeline, a fact that Inside Woman could not ignore.

Then, there was an illness we recently experienced. It knocked both Inside and Outside Woman flat on our mutual ass. We didn’t recover nearly as quickly as we once did. Strength was an issue. Building it back required purposeful, daily attention where once, a good night’s sleep or two would have done the trick.

The good news is that reality is forcing Inside Woman to loosen her stranglehold on artificiality. She is beginning to see the beauty of being at one with me, the Outside Woman. She is finding that as she releases the need to deny our 63-ness, a wonderful spaciousness is unfolding. Our eyes are taking in the world with new appreciation, based on the fact that we are closer to the end than to the beginning of our life, and we’d better make the best of it. 

Together, we are seeking to learn what the world requires of us, and how we can best fulfill it. We are called, we sense, to move away from what is familiar and to act in ways that benefit the greater good.

Certainly, there are things going on out there that scare the hell out of us. ISIS, with its theocracy of violent hatred, makes us want to draw our family close and hunker down. Ebola has the same effect. 

Politics, as usual, makes us want to reach out and choke someone. Big business and big money, big insurance and big medicine disgust us. Abuse of the environment and abuse of each other make us want to sit down and howl with sad outrage. 

But then, the sun comes up and the moon rises. The sun dances on the petals of one of the last rose blooms of the summer. A drive into the mountains makes us sigh and ooh and ahh as we round each new corner to eye-popping yellows, delicate peaches, and majestic deep greens. We are, as the saying goes, learning that it is only in this moment in which we exist. We can miss it, or we can rejoice in it. It will pass either way.

Life at 63 is good. Very good. It isn’t 53 or even 60, to which both Inside Woman and Outside Woman respond, thank God.