what 60 looks like

Last night when I went to bed, I was in my fifties. When you say it that way, you might possibly be only 50, just barely out of your forties. Barely middle aged.

This morning when I woke up, I was 60.

Same aches and pains when I got out of bed, same wrinkles in the mirror, same batch of pills to take, but... I was 60.

I remember my 30th birthday party. Went out with all the crazy party girls from work and got real drunk on Jack Daniels and Coke. Not quite barfing drunk but close. At one point we went to the ladies room which was in the basement of the bar we were at. I splashed water on my face in a vain attempt to sober up a bit, then realized there were no paper towels left. One of my enterprising cohorts turned the hand dryer nozzle toward the ceiling and held my head over it. By the time my face was dry, my makeup had melted and reformed around the edges of my face and my hair was all shooting straight back like I was standing in a hurricane wind. We sort of fixed it but I knew my night was over, so I wobbled out to my car and headed home.

On the way, one of the two screws that held my glasses lens in place fell out and the lens rotated on its remaining screw to rest against my nose. At this point, a police office pulled me over because I'd been weaving a little trying to find the teeny tiny screw on the dark floor of my car. I looked up at him with my glasses lens hanging lopsided against my nose and explained my entire night to him. Why my hair looked so weird, why my makeup was all the way back by my ears, why my glasses lens was on my nose.

He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then asked me where I lived. When he learned it was just a couple more blocks, he told me to drive at 20 miles an hour all the way there while he followed me. I got to the parking lot and made it up the steps to my apartment door. When he saw me open the door, the cop flashed his light and drove away.

True story.

I expect my 60th birthday will be slightly less eventful.