Senior Citizen

 I am a “senior citizen.” I have been for some time.  How did this happen?  I never intended to become one. I spent my life busy about making a living, raising kids, pursuing career goals, trying to serve God and others and then, I woke up and I was a “senior citizen.”

 This was never my goal.  I never looked down the corridors of time and wished that someday I could become a senior citizen. It happened without my knowing.  I was assigned the title without my consent.

 The first indicator was a card in the mail from AARP.  I did not ask for this.  It just came, about the time I turned 50.  And then I received advertisements from the Neptune Society encouraging me to think about cremation. I don’t want to think about having my body burned, stuffed in a jar or  thrown to the wind.  I want to think about living.

 Part of it is my own fault.  I have sold out my pride for a few cents and asked for a “senior coffee,” a “senior menu,” or a “senior discount.”  Do I have no shame?

  Little things remind me I am aging.  When I purchase a plane ticket on the computer, I have to page down four times to find my birth year.  When I check out at Walmart, the cashier calls me “Sweetie.”  When I go to the barber the floor is littered with white hair clippings.

 We discipline ourselves in our youth so that we will live a longer life. But, when we live long, we discover that it leads to “old age.”  What is this?  I want my youth back.  I want to run and feel the exhilaration of running; to get out of bed without aching, to fly up the stairs two at a time, and to run down them without a thought and without a limp.  I want to eat whatever I want without gaining weight.

 But, if we are successful and live long lives, old age will come. Someone, somewhere said, “Growing old isn’t for sissies!”

 At age 79, Thomas Jefferson lamented about growing old to his friend John Adams, “It is at most but the life of a cabbage, ... when all our faculties have left, or are leaving us, one by one, sight, hearing, memory, ... friends of our youth are all gone, and a generation is risen around us whom we know not,” (Monticello, June 1, 1822). 

 And yet, we discover treasures that we did not expect.  Our children find their way and establish successful careers. Grandchildren giggle and squeal and leap into our arms.  Retirement brings freedom to live where we want, think what we want and do what we want. Friendships grow deep and nourish our souls like the roots of a tree.

 And, the experience of God’s love grows deeper: “You who have been borne by Me from birth and have been carried from the womb; even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; and I will bear you and I will deliver you” (Isaiah 46:3-4)