70

Books by patti Liszkay
​Available on Amazon

​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​Available on Amazon.

​70

​    A few days ago I turned 70. In the days leading up to this birthday I thought not much about it, but on the actual day it hit me as soon as I woke up: I'm now 70 years old. 
    I know it's common for people to feel something akin to uneasiness, loss, or some other troublesome emotion upon crossing certain landmark birthdays: the 30th, 40th, 50th, 65th. I breezed through each of those years without a thought or even a pinch of trepidation. It was only at age 70 that I was finally hit by the birthday thing.
     Not that I'm feeling particularly bad about being 70. Not bad, not good. Just...strange. Different. 70 seems so big. Mountainously big. A mountain of years. Compared to 70, 60 seems like a molehill. I'm in disbelief about being 70. I can't wrap my head around it. There's no denying that 70 years old is old. Which means that I must be...old. And I think that's where the disconnect is coming from for me: I don't feel old.
      I've been looking into the mirror more than usual these past few days. This is what 70 looks like, I tell myself.

    But then, I'm so used to looking at myself in the mirror that I can't really say how much older that image in the mirror looks now than it did last year or the year before or the year before that. All I know is that I don't feel old. Or at least not as old as 70 sounds.
      Sure, I'm not supposed to go running anymore because of the "arthritic changes," as my doctor calls them, that make my feet hurt when I do. And the ophthalmologist is keeping an eye on my optic nerve as my pressure reading numbers have crept up over the last few years. And I've got osteopenia. And high blood pressure. And high cholesterol.
       So I walk instead of run, pop in and out of the doctors' offices now and then, get myself scanned, probed, and tested as required, down a few pills daily and go on about my business. Those routines don't make me feel old. They're just the things I do.
        And yet, I keep reminding myself, I must be old. Because I'm 70. And isn't 70 old?

      No matter what I think?