Tempus Fugit: On the Occasion of My 60th Birthday

“It’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone.” ― Andy Rooney

So, today I turn 60 years old.

On the day I was born:

• John Fitzgerald Kennedy was President of the United States
• Russia was called the Russian Federative Soviet Socialist Republic and was the largest of the 15 “republics” that made up the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
• Nikita Khruschev was the leader of the Soviet Union as the First Secretary of the Communist Party
• Fidel Castro was the leader of Communist Cuba
• Public schools in Dade County, Florida (my birthplace) were segregated, and there were still water fountains labeled “White” and “Colored” in most public spaces
• Country music singers Patsy Cline, Harold “Hawkshaw” Hawkins, and Lloyd “Cowboy” Copas died, along with Cline’s manager Randy Hughes (who was also the pilot) when their single-engine plane crashed near Camden, Tennessee
• Walk Like a Man, recorded by The Four Seasons, was at the top of the Billboard charts (it reached the top spot on March 2, 1963)
• The Beverly Hillbillies ruled the Nielsen ratings in 1963
• The hit movie in theaters was Playboy of the Western World
• The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre was on the list of the best-selling books
• The Beatles recorded From Me to You and Thank You, Girl
• Brigitte Bardot was a sex symbol in March 1963

“I’m not ready to let the youthful part of myself go yet. If maturity means becoming a cynic, if you have to kill the part of yourself that is naive and romantic and idealistic – the part of you that you treasure most – to claim maturity, is it not better to die young but with your humanity intact?” ― Kenneth Cain, Emergency Sex: And Other Desperate Measures

As you know, I feel ambivalent about my 60^th birthday. I am relieved that I am not dead yet, of course, and I still have a few good years left in me. And there are still things I want to accomplish, such as authoring more stories and screenplays, as well as (maybe) finding someone to fall in love with again. (I’m not going to hold my breath on that one, but you never know…)

Still, this is – as I have said many times before – a landmark birthday, and it’s the first such birthday that I observe (I can’t say “celebrate” with any conviction) without my mom (who died in 2015) or my older half-sister Vicky (we are currently and irrevocably estranged). I miss Mom a great deal (Vicky…not so much), especially around the holidays and what used to be family celebrations, and today is no exception.

“We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.” ― B.J. Neblett

As to what I will do today….

Well, I don’t want to spend all day in front of a computer, so I will try to change my routine a bit and watch a movie out in the family room. Or maybe I’ll read for a while. I’ve already been informed that we are going out to dinner tomorrow night, so there will be a slight but acceptable delay in the celebration side of things.  

“It’s very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.” ― Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie