was time flying by!  Today (November 18) was my 72nd birthday.  Yikes!  How did that happen?  It’s not like I should be surprised because it’s myself I’m talking about here, but there’s this sense of unreality about that number.  It’s not middle age, is it?  That went by a long time ago.  It’s always easier when there’s a name you can attach to your age…..a descriptor….like teen, or thirty-something, or middle-aged, but from there on the descriptors take on unfamiliar, even uncomfortable connotations.  Senior citizen?  White-head?  Elder?  Old fart?

Does anyone who gets to celebrate this birthday feel as I do?  That it just sort of sneaked up on me?  That no matter what everyone else calls 72, I’m on the everyone else team and not the 72 team?

Well, no matter about labels.  It’s a 72nd birthday and I’m mighty  grateful to be celebrating.  I’ve had many varieties of birthday celebrations…..fancy parties with lots of presents, late-night events with lots of cocktails, birthday vacations for those special decade milestones, dinner and dancing birthdays, head-cold birthdays spent with pillows on the sofa in the company of old movies, but by now I realise that the kind of celebration I had today is just as special as any of the others…..
I spoke with our kids.
I had tea with girlfriends.
I got some flowers from the sweetest greengrocers in the world.
I got a bottle of perfume and cocktails and dinner out with my best friend Russ.
What a lucky girl.