Mar 9, 2003 4 min read

Someone needs to explain exactly how this happened. Everything is moving along fairly smoothly in the family. The kids are doing okay. Over the years I’ve been able to avoid serious trouble, or outrun it, most of the time.

Then, wham. It’s like a two-car crash at a four-way stop. Sudden. And unexpected.

Except in this case there’s no reason to be surprised. And, it’s not all that sudden.

While we can attempt to ignore birthdays, they still happen, whether you like it or not. This month will mark my passage from the 50s into the 60s.

All I can say is: How the heck did this happen? I’m looking around for someone to take some responsibility for this. It cannot be my fault.

The transition from the 20s to the 30s is no big deal. The dreaded 39 soon arrives, and then you’re pushing into your 40s. There’s enough time even then to make that first million, discover a new drug to cure all disease, or whatever major goal was still on your agenda.

When the big five zero arrives, you feel a touch of panic setting in. At 50 it’s probably the first time you give serious thought about the possibility of retirement someday in the future.

At 60, retirement is no longer just a possibility. You can see it, rising up ever so slowly over the horizon like the predawn sunrise.

Just a few years ago my wife and I received our first membership applications from the American Association of Retired People (AARP). I remember we laughed about it then. After all, we were still in our 50s, not senior citizens. Or so we told ourselves at the time.

How do you deny the senior status when the calendar clicks over another year and the two numbers, six and zero, stare you directly in the face?

Aren’t these just stories about other people you always hear or read about? Do we ever admit that we will change, that change is inevitable, that we will grow older whether we like it or we don’t?

All of us were young once. We were young adults. Young parents. Middle-aged parents. Now grandparents.

Everyone changes around us, our brothers, sisters, our parents, and we notice it. We even see our children grow older. (But they remain children to us forever, regardless of their actual age.) We are incapable of seeing ourselves 20 years from now.

Maybe if everyone had one of those computerized aging portraits done, like those Most Wanted television shows sometimes do for missing persons or fugitives from justice, we would have a better idea of how time will change each of us.

Even if we did see one of those futuristic computer portraits, we would remain in deep denial. There’s just no way we will ever admit or recognize the inevitable changes that lie ahead for each of us.

Maybe that’s the reason number 60 is such a surprise. We never think it will ever happen. Or, at the very least, we never admit or accept the fact that it is going to happen. As it will some day, unless you get hit by a truck or a bolt of lightning.

Now the funny, as in humorous, part of this is the younger people (at least all of those under 60) who will read these words with a certain confidence, and a chuckle, saying to themselves, “This old guy is really getting senile. Why is he rambling on about this? It will never happen to me. I will never be like him.”

To which we can respond by saying: you wanna bet? If the stock market was this easy to predict, we could all be millionaires.

It reminds me of a little poem which I spotted many years ago on a tombstone. I’ve changed a few of the words to fit this birthday topic. It said: “Remember me as you pass by, for as you are so once was I. As I am now, soon you will be. So prepare for 60 and follow me.”

Mike Ellis is the editor of the Herald-Standard. His e-mail address is mellis@heraldstandard.com.