We Have Old Birthdays. Why?

What is an old birthday? Good question. Since my mind travels in its own peculiar world, an old birthday makes perfect sense to me. It simply means that I am old and I had a birthday. I suppose this description would work for any age since every birthday stacks another year onto your total... but in this particular space, I mean OLD.

What qualifies as old? This is the eternal question but I'd like to say that if you are still alive and kickin' past the age of 60 years on earth you get a star. Hit 65 and you get another. 70 years on the planet and you get a shiny star and if you want to you can do one thing that you gave up in order to make it to this age. All years over 70 on this particular planet are bonus years.

You get double bonus points if you are like me and constantly attacked by your own self. Amazing. Thanks to medical science I'm still here, despite what my body wants to do to me. HA!! Of course, this means I have to poke me every week in order to stay alive but I do. This means I WIN! Win what? Life. No matter what other options are there... living still rocks.

Who knew? I've been cheating death for a long time and somehow have outrun the bugger thus far. It's certainly not for my body's continuing efforts to try and do me in. I suppose my brain has something to do with this but I'm not a doctor or a scientist so I'll just stick with good common sense. The bottom line is that I got lucky. I managed to outlive my original bar code but don't ever think I take that fact for granted.

No matter what my age gets to be, I will always be ready to exercise my Oregon Right to Die. Why? Because I was a strong supporter of this law and the right of terminally ill people to be able to choose how and when they leave this planet. I respect your right to disagree with me here but after spending time as a Hospice Volunteer I learned a lot about dying. Not everyone wants to let go and they should be allowed to die on their own terms and in their own time. Some folks want to spare themselves and others the pain of their own death and choose the right to die. Either way we know that death is inevitable and are finally learning that it is also not nearly as scary as we once made it so.

I'd guess there are s+ome of you who are wondering what the heck I am doing by writing about death on Thanksgiving and my birthday. Well, here's the deal. I think this is a great time to talk with family members about these kinds of issues. Too many of us carry the burden of our own indecision. We worry that IF we bring up the subject of death with our children they'll freak out or faint or start grabbing knick-knacks and fighting over them.

All I'm trying to say here is that you're the boss. Every birthday you get gives you all the more control over your own life. Age is wisdom... remember? There are few exceptions. You know more about your own personal wishes than anyone on the planet. If you have certain ideas and beliefs about your own death, your current age doesn't matter but your mental health does. Get those thoughts and wishes out in public and off your heart. It's so much easier than holding them too closely to yourself.

My Grandmother had us write our names on special things we wanted to have after she died. At first this gave me the creeps. After some thought, I loved this idea. I also loved that I didn't have to cover somebody's name up to get my choice. Please note that she didn't die until several years after this announcement. She just thought it was a good thing to do. She was right. Through this simple exercise she put all of us on notice that she would not be here forever.

This was a gentle reminder. I have tried to do this with my own daughters but they buy bigger Sharpies. God love 'em. I hate all those marks on my stuff. This is the sort of thing that happens when you have two children.

So, now I'm 72 years-old. I can't help it so I am celebrating this fact. I have one year to improve over the boo-boos I got during my 71st year. God help me... this year has GOT to be better. For the record, I started off by knocking over a CAUTION WET FLOOR sign at Spirit Mountain Casino by walking into it. Mr. S threatened to leave me forever. HELP!