Happy Hour

Tonight’s drink: Little Black Dress Merlot

I’m in Ripon this weekend for my grandmother’s 90th birthday party. I’m discovering that you don’t realize how old 90 is until you’ve seen someone get there over two decades.

When I worked at the newspaper, I had a column called “Friends and Neighbors” where I wrote about local people of interest. It was pretty commonplace for me to get letters about people turning 100, or 102, or 104, etc. I referred to them, appropriately, as the centenarians.

That was over five years ago now, and I have to believe that some, if not all, of the centenarians I met are gone. When I imagine that, I picture them as little dandelion puffs just whisking away with the breeze. If you don’t watch someone get old, it’s almost impossible to see them as anything but. They become their own sort of life form – a fleeting one, despite the evidence to the contrary.

My dad picked me up from the airport and I went with him to get some groceries for the party. The bag girl asked him if he needed help out, and he replied, “I’m not that old yet.” As we walked out, I thought, “Neither am I,” but something about the “yet” made me feel so mortal all of a sudden. I felt my muscles shiver in the cold air, the strength of my bones, the fluidity of my joints and movements. And then I pictured my grandmother the last time I had seen her. Frail and pale, fingers crooked from arthritis, sliding on her walker. Yet.

It really bugs me when people spout their mantras about “living for today” and “siezing the moment,” because I feel like those things are luxuries, not rights. It’s great to go around smelling the roses, but if you can’t make rent at the end of the month, you’ll be smelling a lot more than that while you’re living on the street.

So this post isn’t about that — or any other sort of advisory about how you’re supposed to appreciate this totally random, irrational existence. It’s just an observation on perspective, I suppose.

And a reminder that I need to take more calcium.